TRIUMPHS OF THE BIBLE, 



WITH THE 



TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE 



TO ITS TKUTH. 



REV. HENRY TULLIDGE, A.M. 

— viKuUy Kai "iva. viK-f\o~r\. — Rev. vi. 2. 

" Science may scale new heights and explore new depths, hut she shall hring 
back nothing from her daring and successful excursions which will not, when 
rightly understood, yield a fresh tribute of Testimony to the Bible."— Melville's 
Sermons. 



NEW YORK : 
CHARLES SCRIBNER, 124 GRAND STREET. 

1863. 

Hi- 



;£S4^ 



o 



T% 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, by 

CHAELES SCEIBNEE, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern 

District of New York. 



Z^>/ 



7 



JOHN F. TROW, 
PRINTER, STEREOTYPER, AND ELECTROTYPER, 

46, 4S, & 50 Greene St., New York. 






PKEFACE, 



The following pages are the result of an effort to produce a 
book of Christian Evidences, adapted to the exigencies of the times. 
Upon a subject which has occupied so many illustrious minds, and 
given birth to monuments of sanctified genius and learning that 
rank among the foremost achievements of the human intellect, it 
might be supposed that nothing more was needed. Yet rich as 
English literature is in defences of our faith, most of them were 
written with distinct reference to some particular errors which 
they opposed in their own day. They are still, and will ever re~ 
main, invaluable to the student, as depositories and armories of re- 
search and argument, but they are not directly available against 
the peculiar difficulties with which Christianity is now called to 
contend. The objections which are brought against the religion 
of the Bible at the present day, are of a very different character 
from those which were so conclusively met by the profound and 
masterly reasonings of Butler, Campbell, Paley, Leland, and others. 
The adversary has returned to the assault with far deeper artifices 
and more plausible disguises. "Forms of error more subtile than 
ever Ebionite propounded or Marcionite devised, are now silently 
producing their influence on thousands and tens of thousands who 
bear on their foreheads the baptismal cross of Christ." ■ " Infidelity 
of late," said Dr. Croly, " has changed its tone ; it is no longer con- 
temptuous, insulting, and audacious. It now assumes the pretence of 
reluctant doubt, laborious learning, and conscientious investigation. 
Yet more desperate corruptions of the truth of God, more profligate 
attempts to unsettle the soul, or a more inveterate passion to throw 

1 Ellicott's Hulsoan Lectures, p. 21, Am, e<L 



PEEFACE. 



man into the grasp of moral death, were never exhibited in the most 
ostentatious periods of hostility to the Gospel." This warning, 
uttered fifteen years ago, had special reference to the rationalistic 
developments in Germany, though there were not wantmg indi- 
cations that the errors which were there full blown, had already 
been transplanted, in their germ at least, to England. It may 
now be said, that in the latter country, as in Germany before, 
scepticism has penetrated even into the Sanctuary, donned surplice, 
gown, and cassock, and speaks from university chairs and parish 
pulpits And there also the divine authority of Revelation is the 
main object of attack. « One period," says a German writer, " has 
fought for Christ's sepulchre; another for his body and blood; 
the present period contends for his word." By these preachers 
of a Gospel " adapted to the wants of the nineteenth century," the 
Bible is not avowedly rejected. Honeyed words are spoken by 
them in its praise, and they even profess to esteem it, " as a whole, 
far the noblest collection of sacred works in the world." But its 
claim to be received as an inspired and infallible record of divine 
truth— "the law and the testimony "—they utterly set aside, and 
accept its most positive statements only so far as they accord with 
the oracle within. 1 The Bible, they will admit, contains a revela- 
tion, but human reason is to determine what is the truth commu- 
nicated. As a mathematician would cast out the irrelevant from 
a treatise on geometry, so do they claim the prerogative, in virtue 
of a "heaven-taught conscience" and the possession of a "verify- 
ing faculty," to separate the human from the divine— to sift the 
chaff from the wheat of inspiration. The Bible is thus in effect 
made a kaleidoscope, to be turned and shaken at the fancy of 
every man who handles it, presenting at each turn a new and fan- 
ciful combination of ever-varying truth. The existence # of abso- 
lute unchanging truth, at least as connected with religion, they 
do not, indeed, appear to recognise. In their system the receiv- 
ed facts of Christianity are sublimated into ideas, while its doc- 
trines, ever as occasion requires, are to be moulded^and conformed 
to the "new and higher forms of modern thought." 

i - The Scriptural writers," says the Eev. Dr. Eowland Williams « after all, were 
Tmt men and the condition of mankind is imperfect. They spoke of old, hut all old 
toeTre'present, as it were, the childhood of the human race, and therefore had 
childish things which we must put ^."-Rational Godliness, p. 294 



PEEFACE. 5 

This school of error is apparently on the advance. The famous 
"Essays and Keviews" in which two years ago the fundamental 
verities of Christianity were impugned by ordained ministers of 
the Church of England, are now followed by a book written by a 
prelate of the same church (Dr. Colenso), in which he undertakes 
to demolish the authority of the Pentateuch and the Book of 
Joshua, and it is intimated that, in his next effort, he may possibly 
essay to prove the Gospels to be " unhistorical ! " Truly prophetic 
is the description which Spenser gives of Doubt, as being clad in 
"a coat of strange disguise, 1 ' with "sleeves dependant." Unlike 
the first illustrious missionary bishop to the heathen, one of his 
successors in the apostolate thus seeks to destroy the faith he was 
commissioned to proclaim. For it is vain to say that these " new 
views " are reconcilable with holding to the essential verities of 
the faith. The enlightened mind, whose moral and intellectual 
perceptions have not been clouded by the mephitic vapors of 
transcendentalism and ideology, clearly sees that the foundation 
is thus attacked, and that vital interests are at stake. If the sacred 
vessel that holds the water of life be shattered, its precious con- 
tents, spilt upon the ground, can never be gathered up again. The 
" bewildered friends " of Christianity may be unaware of their posi- 
tion. " With numb and icy fingers they may feel around the cross 
which they do not grasp," but their Gospel is not that of Paul and 
of John. If they are not " breaking down the carved work of the 
sanctuary with axes and hammers," they are assiduously engaged 
in undermining it. And for what ? That they may overturn the 
grand and stately temple which through so many ages " the good- 
ly fellowship of the prophets" and "the glorious company of the 
apostles" were employed in rearing for us, and of which God 
himself is the Architect, and raise up in its room the " ever-top- 
pling fabrics of scepticism" — 

" Cloud towers by ghostly masons wrought 
In shadowy thoroughfares of thought." 

In view of such developments, it is no wonder that the old 
enemies of the truth are beside themselves with delight. Their 
interpretation of these " unwonted signs " is that they betoken 
"the advent of a great spiritual reformation." In its traditional 
and accepted forms, they already assume Christianity to be a thing 



6 PREFACE. 

of the past ; but they console those who would regret its ¥ dying 
out " with the assurance that " a purer and brighter light is about 
to dawn upon us." " The gallant ship " (of Christian truth), loosed 
from "the chains of a dogmatic theology," is now prosecuting "a 
voyage of discovery and adventure on the dark waters of unknown 
seas, and the bright light of the rising sun illumines her pathway, 
to the haven where she would be." "Already, it would seem, that 
her prow must have " grated the golden isles " of doubt — that the 
great "discovery" had been made which the "prophetic spirit" 
of Emerson, the "deep insight" of Carlyle, and the "spiritual ear- 
nestness " of the younger Newman, so long have waited for. At 
least such joy is theirs 

" As when to them who sail 

Beyond the cape of Hope, and now are past 

Mozambic, off at sea northeast winds blow 

Sabean odors from the spicy shore 

Of Arabie the blest." 

The exulting champion of scepticism does not hesitate to claim 
that " the whole mental food of the day — science, history, morals, 
poetry, fiction, and essay — is prepared by men who have long 
ceased to believe." * It does not appear, however, what it is that 
has supplied the place of that "old belief" in which such men as 
Bacon, Newton, and Locke found rest to their souls. There is 
doubtless great exaggeration in the above statement, which rather 
expresses the wish of the writer than the condition of things as it 
actually exists. Still it also contains much truth. And there is 
not a little in the " signs of the times " to occasion serious appre- 
hension to those who stand by "the faith once delivered to the 
saints." 

The believer knows, indeed, that the hopes and aspirations of 
scepticism are doomed to disappointment — knows that the cause 
of Zion is in safe hands. The bands of error that are now gather- 
ed against her battlements, like " the midnight host of spectres 
pale " that once, according to the wild old legend, " beleaguered 
the walls of Prague," will be scattered by the light of the Morning 
Star. And even though the enemy succeed in effecting a lodg- 
ment within the citadel — 

' Duci intra muros . . . et arce locari '— 

1 Westminster Eeview. 



PREFACE. 7 

yet will not that device avail to overthrow the Christian Ilium. 
" God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved." As from 
the earliest times the Church has been infested by "false teachers" 
within her walls, as well as assaulted by foes without, and has 
ever triumphed over both, so will it be again. Could the Bible 
be overthrown, then, indeed, would her Palladium be lost ; but as 
Archbishop Whateley says, "Scripture is in itself invulnerable; 
and they who attack it, do but dash themselves to pieces against a 
rock." Yet, though the Church and the Bible are secure, it is 
requisite, as far as possible, to prevent error from multiplying its 
victims. The snares of the enemy must be laid bare and his arti- 
fices exposed. And this will not be done by alleging that the 
battle of Christianity has been already fought and won — that the 
vindications of its truth, bequeathed to us by the strong champions 
of old, are unanswered and unanswerable. It is doubtless true 
that the objections and theories of modern unbelief are, mainly, 
but reproductions in novel forms of speculations whose fallacies 
were long since exposed. Thus the pantheism of Spinosa is re- 
vived in the oracular utterances of Emerson, and the " absolute 
religion " of Theodore Parker is but a prosaic version of Pope's 
Universal Prayer. The "Colossal man" theory of Intellectual 
progression seems to have been anticipated in Lord Bolingbroke's 
dictum that there was an " intuitive knowledge " in man, which 
constituted " a perpetual standing revelation, always made, always 
making, to all the sons of Adam." And so also the "difficulties" 
of the Bishop of Ratal's book are but a revival of the old objec- 
tions of Yon Bohlen and Bruno Bauer, long ago met and answered 
by Hengstenberg and other great German scholars. Still, as a 
safeguard to those who might otherwise be led astray, such attacks 
must not be suffered to pass unnoticed. The battle must be fought 
over again, though substantially with the same weapons that have 
proved their efficiency in so many former conflicts. If the old 
works of evidence will not now be read, then new ones should be 
written with corresponding adaptations to the new modes of attack 
adopted by the enemy. And especially should means be taken to 
convince the promising youth in our halls of learning, that Christian- 
ity is fully able to " stand the light of the age in which we live " 
— that there is no such " unbridged chasm," as scepticism insinuates, 
between Science and Revelation. And though w r e cannot doubt, 
that God's watchful care and grace will be over his Church to the 



8 PREFACE. 

end of time, so that the gates of hell shall not finally prevail against 
it, yet it should also be considered, that the necessity of human 
exertion, so long as second causes shall form part of the Divine 
economy, will not therefore be superseded. If the sceptic will 
occupy himself in the task of ransacking all ancient and modern 
learning, for the purpose of discovering some flaw, some incon- 
sistency, in the charter of our salvation, it is at least incumbent 
upon the Christian scholar who is "set for the defence of the 
Gospel," to exercise a like zeal and industry in behalf of a trust 
so sacred and so tremendously important. Moreover, as there is 
the authority of Bishop Butler for the statement that " the evidences 
of Christianity are a long series of things, reaching from the be- 
ginning of the world to the present time, of great variety and 
compass, taking in the direct and also the collateral proofs, and 
making up all of them together but one argument," — it is obvious, 
that as the materials for that " argument " accumulate, they should 
be wrought in, in order that its strength, impregnability, and 
grandeur may be duly apprehended. 

It is not proposed in the present work to survey the whole 
field of Christian Evidence, nor have I taken more than a passing 
glance at the great pillars of argument for the truth, such as the 
prophecies and miracles of the Bible, which have already been 
elaborated with such surpassing skill. The special object at which 
I have aimed has been to vindicate the truth and authority of the 
Divine "Word, and prove its harmony with the discoveries of 
Science, while incidentally, replies are given to some of the more 
prominent and plausible objections of modern unbelief. In follow- 
ing out the plan adopted, I have endeavored, first, to show that 
the "Triumphs of the Bible," i. e. the resistance it has overcome 
and the marvels it has accomplished in the world, demonstrate it 
to be from God. This is designed as an introduction to the main 
portion of the work, of which the three opening chapters are 
occupied with proofs of the harmony of Physical Science with 
Revelation, while in the remainder of the book, the most thorough 
investigations of what in distinction may be termed Historical 
Science, are shown to utter a like testimony. The wonderful 
attestations to the truth of Scripture, which have been obtained 
in recent years from the " lands of the Bible," and by which its 
Historic Reality is vindicated against the Mythical School of 
Scepticism, are brought out in the closing chapters. 



CONTENTS. 

»♦* 

PART I. 

TRIUMPHS OF THE BIBLE. 

Severity of its ordeal— Its preservation a twofold argument— Scripture itself a 
battle-ground — Christianity a " Book Revelation " — Its achievements — Propa- 
gation of the Gospel— Causes assigned by Gibbon for its triumph inadequate— 
The Cross still a conquering sign — The Book advancing — Its final triumph in 
the world assured— The almoner of temporal blessings— Picture of ancient 
Athens — Social tyranny of the people — An accomplished Athenian— Corres- 
ponding picture of Roman manners — Beneficent changes wrought by Christi- 
anity—Glorious consummation in the future— The agent of intellectual ad- 
, vancement— Splendor of the ancient civilization — Its fatal defect — Religion of 
the Bible the wanting element — Triumphs during the dark ages — The great 
boon of the Reformation— Influence of the Bible on Literature, Art, and 
Science — Colossal man hypothesis — The Bible's greatest triumph — Still an 
object of hostility— Combination of enemies— Duty of the Christian— Tho 
Bible prepared for every scrutiny, pp. 13—71 

PART II. 

TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

PRELIMINARY. 

Difference in aim and object of Science and Revelation— Phenomenal language- 
Truths concealed therein, pp. 73—76 

CHAPTER I. 

ASTRONOMY. 
The word " firmament"— The earth's motion— Gravitation implied— Uniformity of 
the earth's rotation— Countless number of the stars— Sceptical inference and 
objection— Dr. Chalmers— Probable extent of the moral influence of redemp- 
tion — God's ways and thoughts not as ours — His glory seen in the minute as in 
the vast— Analogies of Scripture— Infidel Cosmogony— Nebular Hypothesis- 
Evidences of Creative design— Arrangement for the stability of the solar sys- 
tem—Obliquity of the earth's axis to the equator— Acceleration of the earth's 
motion— Resisting medium— Other indications of approaching change— In har- 
1* 



10 CONTENTS, 

mony "with Creation's apparent law— Professor Nichol— His conjectures antici- 
pated in the Bible— Restitution of all things— The Heaven of the Bible— Dis- 
covery of the planet Neptune— Surpassed by the achievements of Christian 
faith—" Delectable Mountains"— Doctor Payson— Giles Fletcher's description 
of " the Holy City," pp. 77—106 

CHAPTER n. 

GEOLOGY. 

Its rank as a science— Formerly received opinion of the date of Creation— "Wrecks 
of a former state of nature— Cuvier— Its leading principles now established- 
Each of the strata a vast catacomb — Immense quantity of fossil remains — Tab- 
let of signs— Geology the key— Apparent discrepancy with Scripture— Favorite 
counter-explanation — Orderly arrangement cannot be referred to a disturbing 
agency — Simulacra— Such resorts unnecessary— Difficulty of reconcilement 
not with Scripture, but with misconceptions of its meaning— Coincidences of 
the Mosaic narrative of Creation with the discoveries of Geology— Preparation 
for man — Remarks of Professor Guyot— Death in the world before Adam — 
Vast antiquity of the globe— First mode of reconcilement with Scripture- 
Alleged to be no longer adequate— Another mode— Scriptural difficulty— How 
met— Each hypothesis consistent with the letter of Scripture— The deluge of 
Noah— No physical evidences remaining— Objections to its extending over the 
entire globe— Mosaic account examined— Probably not literally universal— This 
view supported by Bishop Stillingfleet and Matthew Poole — Answers all objec- 
tions— North British Review quoted— The "minute philosophers"— Dr. Buck- 
land— Geology a witness for Revelation— Development hypothesis— Infidel ob- 
jection to miracles overthrown, pp. 107—144 

CHAPTER ni. 

PHYSICAL SCIENCE CONTINUED. 

A difficulty for the sceptic— Scientific absurdities of the ancients— Fathers of the 
Church — Kepler— Dreams substituted for realities in matters of observation- 
Credulity of Pliny and Tacitus— Virgil— Contrast of the Bible— Remarkable 
power of adjustment in its language— One hundred and fourth Psalm— Baron 
Humboldt— Distinction between primitive and solar light recognized— The day- 
spring— Adaptation of light to the atmosphere— "Weight of the air and measure 
of the waters — " Circuits"— Dust of gold — " Since man was upon the earth"— 
Great principles of science recognized — Universal prevalence of law— Higher 
law of progress and development— Adaptation— Law of type or pattern— God's 
"Word verified in all cases by his works — Inadequacy of science to our spiritual 
wants— The great question— Abiding truth— Key to all mysteries, pp. 145 — 172 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE UNITY OF THE HUMAN RACE. 

Theory of primitive centres— Inconsistent with Scripture— Physical Identity- 
Moral and intellectual constitution everywhere the same— Dr. Prichard's Nat- 
ural History of Man— Influence of Climate — Historical Testimony — Observa- 
tions of Bishop Heber in India— Baron Humboldt — Insufficiency of time ob- 



CONTENTS. 1 1 

jected— Divine intervention probable— Law of deterioration moro rapid than 
restoration — Appeal to Scripture— Inequality of mental endowment — Contrasts 
Tio deeper than the surface— Comparative Philology a witness for the Bible — 
Dr. Max Muller — Fossil remains of languages — Summary of arguments by Rev. 
Dr. Breckinridge, . pp. 173—192 

CHAPTER V. 

SACRED CHRONOLOGY. 

Difficulties of the subject — Objections to the Hebrew Chronology— Reasons for. 
preferring the larger Chronology of the Septuagint— Considered a vulnerable 
point fifty years ago— Sanguino anticipations of infidelity disappointed— As- 
tronomical observations of the Hindus— Historical records of China and India 
—Egyptian zodiacs— Rosetta stone— Manetho— His dynasties partly contempo- 
raneous— Syncellus— -Different results arrived at by the learned — Extravagant 
views of Baron Bunsen— Mr. Rawlinson quoted— A moderate Egyptian Chro- 
nology established by the researches of Mr. Poole— Reconcilable with a remote 
Egyptian antiquity — Estimate of Baron Bunsen's authority— Table of Abydos 
—Heliacal rising of the Pleiades— Geology a witness to the late appearance of 
man— Bishop Berkeley— Sir Charles Lyell's counter theory of man among the 
mammoths examined— His inferences not proven— Opinion of Professor Sedg- 
wick— Lucretius, pp. 193—211 

CHAPTER VI. 

PRIMITIVE HISTORIC TRADITIONS. 

Value of the Bible as a record of the past— Infidel objection— Shadows of Bible 
realities — Origin of Pagan Idolatry — Traditions of chaos and creation— The 
seventh day — Age of innocence— The serpent — Pandora's box— Longevity of 
the first men — Four ages— The Titans — Traditions of a Deluge universal— Baron 
Humboldt — Grotius— Tower of Babel— Burning of Sodom— Rite of circumcision 
—Moses— Decree of Pergamos — Artapanus— The Exodus— Hermes— Miracle of 
Joshua. — Infidel charge refuted— Bible truths and heathen legends, pp. 212—235 

CHAPTER VII. 

ANCIENT HISTORY. 

Christianity bound up with facts— Uncontradicted by the early enemies of the 
Gospel— Unconscious prophecies of Heathendom— The Desire of .all nations— 
Josephus— Archelaus— John the Baptist— Record sent by Pilate to the Roman 
Senate— Testimony of opponents to Christianity— Celsus— Tacitus— Suetonius 
—Remark of Gibbon— Kindred of Christ brought before Domitian — Corres- 
pondence of Pliny and Trajan— Apologies of Quadratus and Aristides— Por- 
phyry — The Emperor Julian— Completeness of the chain of evidence — Tri- 
umphal arch of Titus at Rome— The Jew of the present day, . pp. 236—255 

CHAPTER VIII. 

OBJECTIONS AND REPLIES. 
Charge of discrepancy and contradiction— Vanishes upon discovery of the clue— Al- 
leged collision of Scripture and Profane History— Minute accuracy of the sacred 
writers vindicated— Medals for the coronation of Louis XIV— Title assigned by 
Luke to Sergius Paulus— Silence of Profane History— Unity and Harmony of the 
Bible— Undesigned Coincidences— Their value as evidences, . pp. 256—270 



12 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER IX. 

SACRED GEOGRAPHY — TOPOGRAPHICAL ACCURACY OF THE BIBLE. 

The Land and the Book— Pictorial Alphabet of spiritual truths— Value of this tes- 
timony—Constant agreement of the history and geography of the Bible— Un- 
changing manners and customs of the East— The face of nature— Present as- 
pect of Palestine accounted for— Topographical details— Land of Goshen— On 
— Zoan— Passage of the Red Sea— Wells of Moses— Marah— Elim— Mount Sinai 
—The Wilderness— Approach to Palestine— Beersheba— Hebron— Land of the 
Philistines— Bethlehem— Jerusalem— Road to Jericho— Dead Sea— Engedi— 
The Jordan, pp. 271—314 

CHAPTER X. 

TOPOGRAPHICAL ACCURACY OF THE BIBLE {Continued.) 

Gibeon— Mizpeh— Shiloh— Shechem— Samaria— Dothan— Mount Carmel— Jezreel 
—Nazareth— Sea of Galilee— Scenery of the Parables— Lebanon— Hermon— 
Argument of Professor Stuart, pp. 315—359 

CHAPTER XI. 

ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES — OLD TESTAMENT. 

Historic reality of the Bible — Special object of infidel attack— Rise of a new science 
—Use made of it by infidelity— Mythical school of Scepticism— Its development 
and extension— Influence and tendency— Macka^s Progress of the Intellect— 
. His interpretation of the history of Joseph— This new phase of infidelity over- 
ruled to the advantage of the Bible— Internal evidence of the early Scriptures 
— A Providential vindication in reserve— Its timely disclosure— Nature of the 
testimony illustrated by discoveries in Pompeii— Monumental wonders of Egypt 
—Particulars of Abraham's visit corroborated— Infidel objections answered— 
Incidents in the history of Joseph— The Bondage— The "king who knew not 
Joseph"— Shishak and Rehoboam— Gates of Mount Seir opened— Giant Cities 
of Bashan— Moab— Ammon— Ancient Nineveh disentombed— Range and extent 
of the Assyrian discoveries— Pictorial history of the Empire— Summary of its 
incidental confirmations of Scripture — Key to the language found— Identifica- 
tion of Scripture names— King of Moab's eldest son— Annals of Shalmaneser— 
Sennacherib before Lachish— Tribute exacted of Hezekiah— Egyptian seals 
found in the Kouynjuk Palace— Ezar-haddon— Nebuchadnezzar's " enchant- 
ment"— Anticipation of Mr. Rawlinson— Exact fulfilment of prophecy in the 
respective judgments upon Nineveh and Babylon— Old Testament scenes still 
reproduced in the vicinity, pp. 360—409 

CHAPTER XII. 

ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES — NEW TESTAMENT. 

Attempt to idealize the New Testament— Internal evidence— Confession of Rous- 
seau—Character of Christ— Fresh Confirmations brought to light from the 
Catacombs of Rome— Graffiti— Conclusion, .... pp. 410—421 

Appendix.— Authenticity and Genuineness of the Sacred Scriptures, pp. 422—429 



PART I. 
TRIUMPHS OF THE BIBLE 



Among the numerous evidences of the divine origin of 
the Bible, which the progress of time has accumulated, the 
persevering opposition it has resisted and overcome, is not, 
perhaps, the least considerable. So many and formidable 
are the assaults it has sustained, that its preservation to 
this day unimpaired, is an unanswerable proof that One 
mightier than man must have watched over its safety and 
integrity. No book has been so attacked and no book has 
so triumphed as the Bible. Many a volume that once bid 
fair for immortality has gone down to oblivion. Of the 
unnumbered thousands that have been written since the 
dawn of literature, how few, even of those that once filled 
the trump of fame and were ranked among the chief pro- 
ductions of human genius, have escaped the ravages of 
time and the forgetfulness of man ! Though the shelves of 
mighty libraries groan with the learned labors of the past, 
yet of the vast majority of the works therein deposited, it 
may be said, that " like the bodies of Egyptian kings in 
their pyramids, they retain only a grim semblance of life, 
amidst neglect, darkness, and decay." Upon the sacred 
oracles alone, the lapse of ages has gathered no rust. 
Time has not outdated them. They are as fresh and living 



14 TRIUMPHS OF THE BIBLE. 

now, as when prophets and apostles first indited their burn- 
ing words, and their power and influence were never be- 
fore so great as they are to-day. Since they were first 
given to the world, mighty empires have risen and decay- 
ed ; proud capitals have flourished and fallen into ruin ; 
numerous generations have come and gone ; chaiige and 
revolution have again and again swept over the globe ; yet 
this citadel of our faith has survived the desolations of 
ages, unmutilated and undecayed. During these revolving 
centuries, the Bible has encountered every form of peril. 
The great men and the mighty men, kings and nations, 
pagans and papists, have sought its extirpation. Popes and 
priests have sought to corrupt and deface it, or to substi- 
tute monkish legends for its words of life. All that learn- 
ing could discover, all that eloquence could allege, all that 
wit, cunning, and sophistry could contrive, have been 
brought to bear against it. The bowels of the earth and 
the region of the stars have been alike explored to furnish 
means for its overthrow. Yet all has been in vain. Thou- 
sands of its friends have suffered martyrdom in its defence, 
yet, like the mystic bush which it chronicles, it has remain- 
ed unconsumed. The malignant rage of Antiochus, Decius, 
and Diocletian, and the labored arguments of Celsus and 
Porphyry, have been equally powerless against the Word 
of the Lord. In modern times, the philosophy of Hobbes, 
the sceptic doubts of Bayle, the polished sarcasm of Boling- 
broke, the subtlety of Hume, the learning of Gibbon, the 
mockery of Voltaire, and the vulgarity of Paine, have all 
proved unable to invalidate a single statement of the 
prophets of Israel or the fishermen of Galilee. Like the 
ark of Noah, upborne and protected by the invisible hand 
of the Almighty, the Bible has safely ridden " the resistless 
tide which has set in from the birth of Time," and which is 
continually overwhelming man and his works. Commenced 
in the Arabian desert ages before Homer sang, and finished 



TRIUMPHS OP THE BIBLE. 15 

fifteen hundred years afterward on an island in the ^Egean 
Sea, it has come down to us from that remote antiquity 
unscathed and entire, like the fabled pillars of Seth, which 
are said to have bid defiance to the flood that swept all 
things else away. As Sir Thomas Browne has said, " The 
Bible is too hard for the tooth of time. It cannot perish, 
but in the general flames, when all things shall confess 
their ashes." " The grass withereth, and the flower there- 
of falleth away ; but the word of the Lord endureth for- 
ever." 

This wonderful preservation presents a twofold argu- 
ment for the Bible. Its heavenly origin is vindicated by 
the intense and unremitting hostility it has encountered, 
and by its success in overcoming it. For it is impossible 
to assign that hostility to any other cause than the dis- 
closures which it makes respecting the extreme deadliness 
of sin, and of the ineffable purity and justice of the Divine 
nature. These are the stumbling blocks which have in all 
ages elicited the enmity of the human heart and arrayed 
against it such powerful and numerous adversaries. Let it 
then be even supposed that the unaided genius of man 
could have produced such a volume as the Bible, display- 
ing, as it confessedly does, in the judgment even of its 
enemies, 1 such sublimity of thought, such knowledge of 
the heart, and such amazing depth of wisdom ; is it likely 
that writers of so extraordinary capacity would have given 
characteristics to their work which render it an object of 
such deep and widespread aversion ? that they would 
have been so weak as to represent God and human nature 
in characters unpalatable to the natural man, and most of 

i The infidel Rousseau was constrained to utter such an eulogium as the 
following : " The majesty of the Scriptures strikes me with astonishment. 
Look at the volumes of all the philosophers, with all their pomp, how con- 
temptible do they appear in comparison with this ! Is it possible that a book 
at once so simple and sublime can be the work of man? " 



16 TRIUMPHS OE THE BIBLE. 

all, on the supposition that they were impostors, unpala- 
table to themselves? Such a mixture of weakness and 
wisdom, we must at once see to be incongruous and im- 
possible. # 

And the fact of the Bible's preservation in the midst of 
all this hostility ; that it should stand unto this day, amid 
the wreck of all that is human, substantially entire in every 
part, is an argument for its divinity which no sophistry of 
infidelity can explain or overthrow. "The resistance of 
ages is its crowning legitimation. It is felt and feared by 
all the rulers of the darkness of this world. It is the visi- 
ble battle-field of invisible forces, showing in the radiant 
faces of the martyrs who have died for it, and the unearthly 
struggles of those who have hunted it from the earth, what 
mysterious interests are suspended on its safety or destruc- 
tion." " For could we but see a volume bearing marks of 
all that these holy oracles have passed through, what should 
we behold but an ancient volume exhibiting signs of hav- 
ing been at one time trampled on by rage, at another 
moth-eaten by neglect ; now interpolated by error, then 
erased by pride ; here, scorched by the fires of bigotry ; 
there, stained with the venom of infidelity ; in every page, 
sprinkled with the blood of its martyred defenders ; and 
yet so substantially entire in every part as to show that it 
has always been in the keeping of Omnipotence — in the 
hollow of His hand." 

There are yet other considerations germane to the above 
argument, which yield a testimony, perhaps little less con- 
vincing, of the divine origin of the Bible. "The Scripture 
itself," says Dean Trench, " is full of remembrances of its 
own power. He who, tolerably well acquainted with the 
history of the Church, with the struggles which accompanied 
the unfolding, fixing, and vindicating of her dogma, — he 
who, furnished with this knowledge, passes over Scripture, 
may in some moods of his mind pass over it as a succession 



TRIUMPHS OF THE BIBLE. 11 

of battle-fields. He may be likened to a traveller journey- 
ing through some land which, by the importance of its posi- 
tion or the greatness of its attractions, has drawn contend- 
ing hosts to its soil,, and been a battle ground for innumer- 
able generations. Besides, in all those pages which speak 
more directly to himself, they are eloquent to him with a 
thousand stirring recollections. For at every step which 
he advances, he recognizes that which has been the motive 
of some mighty and long-drawn conflict, in which the keen- 
est and brightest intellects, the kingliest spirits, the Ber- 
nards and the Abelards of their day, were engaged. Here, 
there, and everywhere, be it that he wanders among the 
extinguished volcanoes of controversies which have now 
burned themselves out, or among those which are flaming 
still, he meets with that, to maintain their conviction about 
which, men have been content to spend their lives, to make 
shipwreck of their worldly hopes, have dwelt in deserts, in 
caves, and in dungeons, yea, gladly have encountered all 
from which nature most, and most naturally shrinks. And 
whatever there may have been of earthly and of carnal 
mingling in the motives of the combatants, however in some 
of them he can recognize only the champions of error, yet 
in these mighty and passionate strivings, in these conflicts 
which generation has bequeathed to generation, he reads 
the confession which all past ages have borne, that this 
Word was worth contending for, — being felt by those 
worthiest to judge, dearer than life itself, and such that 
things else were cheap by comparison with it." ( 

It would, however, convey a very imperfect view of the 
triumphs of the Bible, if we confined our attention to its 
having survived the ordeal of all-conquering Time, and 
escaped uninjured the hostility of its numerous and perse- 
vering enemies, together with the undying interest it has 
excited in the noblest intellects of successive generations. 
The Bible is the document of Christianity, and is indeed 



18 TRIUMPHS OF THE BIBLE. 

identified with it ; for we need not repel the imputation 
of the infidel, though intended as a sneer, that ours is a 
'J Book revelation." The wonderful results that Book has 
achieved, and is still achieving in the world, regarding it as 
the armory of the Church's weapons, or rather as the con- 
ductor of those holy influences through which the Church 
has won all her triumphs, afford a sufficient reply, as well 
as additional and unanswerable demonstration of its heaven- 
ly origin. 

First among these is the propagation of Christianity. 
We cannot imagine an instrumentality in itself more utter- 
ly inadequate to the effect, than when the first preachers of 
the Gospel, " with no diadem but the crown of thorns, no 
sword but the sword of the Spirit," went forth to subdue 
the nations to the obedience of Christ. A little company 
of poor, friendless fishermen, what were thej, to contend 
against all the prejudices, sins, and follies of mankind, the 
weight of learned authority, the advantages of birth, the 
edicts of the civil power, — in a word, against the combined 
hostility of the world ? The Gospel was a stumbling block 
to the Jew, and to the Greek foolishness. How could the 
haughty Pharisee and the worldly minded Sadducee wel- 
come a religion which destroyed their hopes and humbled 
their pride ? which required them to recognize the promised 
Son of David in the lowly Nazarene, and renouncing their 
delusive expectations of earthly conquest and dominion un- 
der the banner of Messiah, to embrace a life of poverty, 
self-denial, and persecution ? No wonder they turned from 
it with scorn and loathing. Nor were less difficulties to be 
encountered in the Gentile world. There a cruel and licen- 
tious idolatry reigned supreme. It has been said, indeed, 
that the spirit of Polytheism was " mild and tolerant ; " 
which being granted, it might be inferred that in it. Chris- 
tianity would find no obstacle. The tolerance of the hea- 
then, however, as in the case of the Romans, only extended 



TRIUMrilS OP THE BIBLE. 19 

to the occasional adoption, from motives of imagined inter- 
est, of the gods of the countries which they conquered, 
recognising them as the tutelary deities of their particular 
districts. The prevailing sentiment of antiquity was that 
which is depicted by the caustic pen of Juvenal : 

" Summus utrinque 
Inde furor vulgo, quod nuraina vicinorum 
Odit uterque locus, quum solus credat habendos 
Esse deos, quos ipse colit." l — Sat. xv. 

The crime for which Socrates suffered martyrdom in 
refined and polished Athens, was the promulgation of purer 
doctrines concerning God and Providence. Cicero but 
uttered the voice of Roman opinion when he pronounced 
it " among the most necessary laws of every wise state, 
that no one, not excepting strangers, should be allowed to 
offer worship to any gods excepting such as had received a 
public recognition." If the religion of Jesus could have 
admitted of a compromise — could have consented on the 
same terms with the worshippers of Isis and Mithras, to 
share the empty honors of a statue or an altar, the obstacles 
in the way of its acknowledgment might have been over- 
come. But, at the bidding of a few unlettered men, to 
displace the Jupiter of the Capitol for the Crucified of Ju- 
dea — yea, to burl from their seats all the deities of the 
Pantheon, and account their whole religious system, 
though sanctioned by tradition, hallowed by patriotism, 
and radiant with unrivalled attractions of poetry and art, 
as a tissue of fraud and fable, this was a requirement which 

1 Between two neighboring towns, a deadly hate, 
Sprung from a sacred grudge of ancient date, 
Yet flames ; a hate no lenience can assuage, 
No time subdue, a rooted, rancorous rage ! 
Blind bigotry, at first, the evil wrought, 
For each despis'd the other's gods, each thought 
Its own the true, the genuine, in a word, 
The only deities to be adored." — Gifford's Trans. 



20 TRIUMPHS OF THE BIBLE. 

excited the astonishment and hatred of the heathen world, 
and especially incensed the pride and arrogance of Rome. 
In the schools of philosophy also, fresh difficulties were to 
be met. Those schools were at this time more frequented 
than ever, and the Portico and the Grove at Athens were 
the acknowledged thrones of the intellectual world. Be- 
neath the spell of the subtile and dazzling theories which 
were there elaborated, all the cultivated minds of heathen- 
dom cringed in willing thraldom. How vain then, appa- 
rently, to expect that the disciples of Plato and Aristotle 
would exchange their lofty speculations, reaching " beyond 
the utmost bounds of human thought," for the humbling 
tenets of a religion which taught that "the wisdom of this 
world is foolishness with God ! " Another element of oppo- 
sition to the pure and uncompromising Gospel, was found in 
the vices of an age which, according to all the pictures that 
have been drawn of it, seems to have exceeded the usual 
measure of corruption. Amid much exterior refinement, 
morality was unknown, and the most detestable vices 
everywhere prevailed. The world was one great temple 
of pollution. " Darkness covered the earth and gross 
darkness the people." They did not " like to retain God 
in their knowledge," and He had given them up to a " rep- 
robate mind." Statesmen, philosophers, and priests, not 
less than the great body of the people, were shamelessly 
depraved. Their very amusements, the gladiatorial shows, 
eagerly attended by women as well as men, in which hun- 
dreds and thousands of human victims were 

" Butchered to make a Roman holiday ! " 

sufficiently prove the brutality of their manners and the 
hardness of their hearts. These human victims, be it also 
noted, were fed on a succulent diet for some weeks pre- 
vious to the exhibition, in order that their veins, being 
full, might bleed more freely, for the greater gratification 



TRIUMPHS OF THE BIBLE. 21 

of the spectators ! The other leading nation of antiquity- 
was not, indeed, stained with the cruelty which, it has been 
said, asserted the presence of the wolf's milk in the moral 
constitution of the masters of the world ; but Greeks as 
well as Romans, not only practised, but gloried in abomi- 
nations which we cannot even execrate by name. Such 
was the character of nations among whom the arts and 
literature nourished ; and facts confirm what might reason- 
ably be inferred, that nothing could be found in barbarian 
lands to relieve the sombre shades of the picture. If with- 
out the vices of a corrupt civilization, other nations were 
under the spell of idolatries far more revolting — 

"Things worse 
Than fables yet have feigned or fear conceived — 
Gorgons and hydras, and chimeras dire." 

Where science and literature had shed their light, there 
was a point of approach, something to which the teachers 
of the new faith could appeal. But here " a darkness that 
migh'; be felt," apparently rendered access hopeless. 

When we consider that such were the obstacles to be 
overcome, and contrast with them the intrinsic feebleness 
of the instrumentality employed, nothing would appear 
more hopeless than the success of the Gospel. Yet in the 
face of all this complicated opposition, the heralds of the 
Cross went forward undaunted and undismayed. They 
allowed of no compromise with sin, but proclaimed the 
wrath of God against all " ungodliness and unrighteous- 
ness of men." Mahomet could allure followers to his 
standard by the promise of a paradise of sensuality ; * but 

1 " The progress of Mahometanism is in full contrast," says Bishop 
Wilson, " in all its causes and characteristics, with that of the Christian faith. 
It arose in the seventh century among a warlike people, in an age of gross 
.darkness ; was founded by a person of one of the'best families of his country; 
it was composed of Jewish legends, and the popular superstitions of Arabia, 
mingled with sentiments and doctrines gathered from the Christian Scrip- 



22 TRIUMPHS OF THE BIBLE. 

they required their disciples to " crucify the flesh with the 
affections and lusts," and to " follow holiness." They en- 
forced upon all, without distinction, upon Greek and bar- 
barian, bond and free, learned and unlearned, the same 
necessity of seeking pardon through a crucified Saviour 
and the relinquishment of every other ground of hope 
toward God. And what was the result? Mighty as 
were the obstructions, and seemingly weak and inadequate 
as were the instruments, yet those weak instruments tri- 
umphed, and those obstructions gave way. The plant 
which grew out of a dry place became beautiful and 
glorious; and the stone which the builders rejected was 
made the head of the corner. Ere the apostles were all of 
them gathered to their rest, "their line had gone out 
through all the earth and their words to the ends of the 
world." Before a century had elapsed, Pliny, writing to 



tures ; and proposing a code of morals comparatively lax, together with sen- 
sual and voluptuous recompenses — in other words, it was a religion adapted 
to the corrupt taste, indulgent to the passions, and modelled to the ignorance 
of the times. In all these respects it illustrates, by the contrast, the purity 
and beneficence and sublimity of the Christian doctrine. Mahomet, further, 
was entirely destitute of credentials — no miracles were even alleged — he pre- 
tended to no prophecies — no seal, therefore, of divine authority was appended 
to his claims. Whatever success then may have attended a debased and vi- 
cious religion, resting on no one attestation of a divine original, but simply 
courting the passions of an age of ignorance and depravity, can never be 
placed in competition with the doctrine of Christianity. But Mahometan- 
ism, be it noted, had, after all, no success, so long as the peaceful means of 
persuasion and argument were alone employed ; whereas Christianity con- 
verted the whole world by meek instruction and patient suffering. Mahomet- 
anism failed of making any progress, till it renounced the arts of peace, and 
unsheathed the sword. The design of the Koran was, as we have observed, 
not to propagate a religion but to form soldiers, and inspire martial courage; 
and it was in this way that it obtained prevalence and prosperity. It follow- 
ed in the train of armies and was propagated at the edge of the scimitar. 
Such a contrast displays in yet brighter lustre the mild glory of that doctrine 
which, unaided by human power, and in the midst of sufferings and contempt, 
surpassed, in the extent and' splendor of its conquests, all the sanguinary con- 
versions of the false prophet." — Evidences of Christianity, voL i, p. 225. 



TEIUMPHS OP THE BIBLE. 23 

the emperor Trajan, reports, that " the contagion of the 
superstition had seized, not cities only, but the lesser towns 
also, and the open country ; so that the heathen temples 
were almost forsaken ; few victims were purchased for sa- 
crifice, and a long intermission of the sacred rites had. 
taken place." The most refined and remorseless cruelty 
was employed by the Roman tyrants to stay the progress 
of the " superstition," but in vain. Fifty years after Pliny 
wrote, Tertullian, addressing the rulers of the empire, could 
affirm : " We were but of yesterday, and have filled your 
cities, islands, towns, and boroughs, the camp, the senate, 
and the forum. They (the heathen adversaries of Chris- 
tianity) lament that every sex, age, and condition, and per- 
sons of every rank also, are converts to that name." Tor- 
ture and death were employed with redoubled zeal, but 
" the blood of the martyrs was still the seed of the Church," 
until at length the hard-fought field was won. Within 
three centuries from the death of Christ, the triumphant 
banner of the Cross was erected on the ruins of the Capitol, 
and the fanes of heathenism, purified from their idolatries, 
became temples of the Christian's God. And not only were 
the oracles hushed, and Jupiter and Apollo with their 
Olympian compeers driven from their shrines, — now 

— " Domos Ditis vacuas et mania regna." — uEn. vi, 269. 

but philosophy yielded her proud pretensions to that " light 
divine," which alone can guide the pilgrim of earth on his 
dim and perilous way. Not only the outcast, the poor, 
and the ignorant, but the learned and the gifted, the men 
of intellectual might, surrendered their most cherished 
convictions, and renounced all hopes of worldly advance- 
ment, to embrace a faith whose rewards are beyond the 
tomb. " Spain heard the Gospel voice ; far-off Britain, and 
those northward and inclement Scandinavian shores, which 
the lordl/ Roman shivered when he named, listened to its 



24 TRIUMPHS OF THE BIBLE. 

call; Egypt, Ethiopia, and North Africa had apostolic 
missionaries ; Gaul bowed to the Cross ; the inhuman 
superstitions of the Druids faded before its gentle lessons ; 
the bloody war-gods of the Goths were given up for the 
rule of the Prince of Peace ; wild Arab tribes and fierce 
men of Parthia and Bactria were among the converts ; 
India was not so distant, but some gleams of that primitive 
light reached her coral strand; many a strange tongue 
•swelled the Church's anthems ; and the noble army of 
martyrs bore the blood-sprinkled banner farther than im^ 
perial legions had ever carried the victorious standards of 
Rome." 

Yet the infidel would account for this wide-extended 
spiritual conquest by the operation of merely human means. 
The historian Gibbon has exhausted his learning and ability 
in endeavoring to assign causes, which, apart from super- 
natural agency accompanying the preaching of the Word, 
would explain so mighty a revolution. But they are mani- 
festly inadequate. Not " the intolerant zeal of the Chris- 
tians," or "the clear development of the doctrine of another 
life," or " the miraculous powers ascribed to the primitive 
Church," or " the pure and austere morals of its members," 
or even " the new discipline of the Christian Community," 
can account for the fact that a religion which entered the 
world at a most inauspicious period, supposing it to be an 
imposture — which had not one principle in common with 
the religions which then obtained — propagated by a few 
obscure persons, universally despised and hated, opposed 
from the very first by Jew and Gentile, and especially by 
those who held the seats of power and influence — a religion 
hostile to human opinion, human prejudice, human interest? 
and human nature, should have triumphed over all oppo- 
sition, and, after the lapse of eighteen centuries, still have 
maintained its ground. Surely we are warranted by every 
sound principle of reason in inferring, that sucn an effect 



TRIUMPHS OF THE BIBLE. 25 

must be due to supernatural power. " A flame living on 
the very bosom of the deep, opposed by all the winds of 
heaveu, often obscured, nearly extinguished, always re- 
sisted, yet rising from apparent exhaustion and decay 
into new brightness, enlarging the circle on w T hich it shines 
age after age, and smiling on the elements which are bat- 
tling against its existence, must be sustained by ethereal 
fires." 

Had the great work gone on according to its glori- 
ous commencement, the world would have been won, 
long ages since, to the faith of Christ. Long since would 
He who "tasted death for every man" have been ac- 
knowledged and adored by all. But too soon the Gos- 
pel's triumphant career was checked. Though there were 
in every age zealous witnesses for the truth — for never 
has the lamp of God gone out in the temple of the Lord 
— yet as a whole, the Church became unfaithful to her 
trust, ceased to make war on the territories of sin and 
death, and a night of a thousand years overshadowed the 
earth. 

That long night passed away, and Zion has risen from 
the dust. Her slumbering energies have been again aroused 
to grapple with the mighty work committed to her by her 
ascended Lord. With the dawn of the present century, 
she again set forth on her errand of mercy, and has pledged 
herself to rest no more, until the world has been leavened 
with the truth and won for Christ. And gladdening results 
have shown that the Gospel is still mighty through God 
to the pulling down the strongholds of sin and Satan. 
Wherever the Cross has been lifted up, it has still proved 
a " conquering sign," and from the region and shadow of 
death, among the dark places of the earth and the habita- 
tions "of cruelty, has won its triumphs and its trophies as of 
old. Look in what direction we may, the horizon of hope 



26 TRIUMPHS OF THE BIBLE. 

enlarges and brightens. The ancient systems of idolatry 
and superstition have become effete, Mahometanism wanes 
and " the Cross alone is crescent." Much land indeed re- 
maineth to be possessed, and to a merely human view, the 
obstacles which still impede the universal triumph of the 
Gospel would even now seem insuperable. So arduous are 
the difficulties yet to be overcome, so numerous are the 
strongholds yet to be overthrown, that the enterprise 
which aims at such a result must appear to a worldly 
mind more than all others romantic, chimerical, and absurd. 
But the Christian is encouraged to believe that the same 
Power which of old wrought such wonders through feeble 
instrumentalities, is now, in like manner, preparing to 
achieve a triumph vastly more glorious. It has been said 
that " the Old Book, the Book of our Redeemer's gift and 
our fathers' faith, .... has been gradually ascending ; 
taking to it new tongues, spreading open its page in every 
land, printed in Chinese camps, pondered in the Red man's 
wigwam, sought after in Benares, a school book in Feejee, 
eagerly bought in Constantinople, loved in the kloofs of 
Kaffir land ; while the voices of the dead from Assyria to 
Egypt have been lifted up to bear it witness." What 
earthly or infernal might can arrest its progress or hin- 
der its predicted triumph ? "It shall come — that long- 
expected hour — when Christianity is to attain universal 
dominion. The march around Jericho shall have an end ; 
the mystic seven shall all have been reckoned; and then 
shall G-od specially inspire the Church with a spirit of ex- 
pectation and prayer, so that a loud shout shall be rais- 
ed, as though, in ceasing to weary earth with their tread, 
the thousands had resolved to invade heaven with their 
voices. And God will answer the cry of His people. He 
will recompense that patient trust which has been dis- 
played, century after century, in the encompassing the 
city, and assailing it with no carnal weapons. On a sud- 



TRIUMPHS OP THE BIBLE. 27 

den shall there be a mighty interference ; the temples of 
idols shall crumble into dust; every form and feature of 
falsehood shall vanish away ; every household and every 
heart shall be a shrine for Christian truth ; and when the 
vast revolution is surveyed, and its producing cause de- 
manded by those who would understand the dealings of 
God, the answer — the triumphant answer will be : " By 
faith the wails of Jericho fell down, when they were com- 
passed about seven days." 

" The powers of darkness on the hills afar 

Watch for the sun, and bend the listening ear 

To catch the rumbling of the distant car, 
And ever and anon start up in fear, 
As echo whispers of his coming near. 

Hark ! how they wail their tottering shrines around, 
"Warning the slumbering idols as they go. 

See, pale and trembling at the distant sound, 
Baal boweth down, and Nebo stoopeth low, 
And haughty Dagon wails his final overthrow." 

An argument akin to the foregoing, yet distinct from 
it, is found in the temporal benefits which Christianity has 
already conferred upon the world. These still further 
illustrate the triumphs and vindicate the divinity of the 
Bible. Facts innumerable can be adduced to prove that, 
in whatever place and under whatever circumstances 
man's lot may be cast, he needs the Gospel, even that he 
may participate in the comforts and blessings of the present 
life. 

In order that the strength of this argument may be 
adequately demonstrated, it w^ill be necessary to take a 
fuller and more comprehensive view of a subject already 
briefly glanced at, in enumerating the active elements of 
opposition to the propagation of the Gospel. We hava 
only to compare the two most polished and refined of 



28 TRIUMPHS OF THE BIBLE. 

ancient nations with modern and Christian, in order to per- 
ceive what the religion of the Bible can accomplish even 
for the present welfare of man. 

The materials for the comparison are derived from the 
valuable Boyle lectures of Mr. Harkness, in which every 
particular statement is verified by references to standard 
classical authorities. 

" Athens," says Mr. H., " was acknowledged to have 
been the most lenient government of antiquity. Yet the 
mind that is refined to gentleness and pity by the spirit of 
the Gospel, can scarcely bear to dwell on the ruthless exer- 
cise of dominion, which is exhibited in the pages of its 
history. The tyranny exercised by the Athenian people 
over those who were subject to their control, surpasses* 
description or belief. No accumulations of reproachful 
epithet, or opprobrious metaphor, could compass their 
savage abuses of authority. The despotism of one is bad : 
but the despotism of many is incalculably worse. Not to 
mention their wanton acts of cruelty, of caprice, of aggres- 
sion, and of injustice, which were as familiar with them — 
perhaps more familiar — than with any of the most sanguin- 
ary tyrants, whose names are infamous in the annals of 
mankind ; but to confine myself strictly to the enormities, 
which originated in their political morals, we shall find by 
looking at the conduct of that brilliant people, that the 
vaunted democracy of Athens was animated by all the self- 
ish passions, was directed by all the narrow principles, w T as 
supported by all the ignominious arts and iniquitous pre- 
cautions, which characterize the dominion of the despot. 
No Dionysius or Agathocles ever exhibited a more timid 
and ungenerous suspicion of his subjects, or followed up 
his suspicions with more of the oppressive vigilance of 
terror. Riches w r ere objects of jealousy: they might be 
made the means of obtaining too commanding an influence 
in the republic ; and the wealthy existed, therefore, in a 



TRIUMPHS OF THE BIBLE. 29 

State of constant persecution and alarm. 4 While I had 
riches,' says Charmides, ' I was obliged to caress every in- 
former. Some imposition was continually laid upon me; 
and I was never allowed to travel or be absent from the 
city. Now I am poor, I look big, and threaten others ; the 
rich are afraid of me ; I am become a kind of tyrant in the 
city.' ! Fame was an object of jealousy : nothing of excel- 
lence, or wealth, or reputation, might, with impunity, over- 
top the level of the democracy. The unrelenting people 
proscribed every superiority as a thing of dangerous conse- 
quence. The same cautious politics produced the Ostra- 
cism of Athens, and thePetaleum of Syracuse, and expelled 
every citizen whose fame or power overtopped the rest. 
Virtue was an object of jealousy ; and so susceptible was 
the prudence of their tyranny, that it instigated them to 
attack even the honorable distinctions which recompense 
superior integrity and purity of life ; and Aristides was 
banished for the celebrity of his justice." 

Hume, in his Essays, gives the following account of an 
accomplished Athenian : " I think I have fairly made it 
appear, that an Athenian man of merit might be such a 
one as with us would pass for incestuous, a parricide, an 
assassin, an ungrateful perjured traitor, and something else 
too abominable to be named ; not to mention his rusticity 
and ill manners. And, having lived in this manner, his 
death might be entirely suitable ; he might conclude the 
scene by a desperate act of self-murder, and die with tho 
most absurd blasphemies in his mouth. And, notwith- 
standing all this, he shall have statues, if not altars, erected 
to his memory ; poems and orations shall be composed in 
his praise ; great sects shall be proud of calling themselves 
by his name ; and the most distant posterity shall blindly 
continue their admiration. Though, were such a one to 

1 Xenophon, Banquet of Socrates. 



30 TRIUMPHS OF THE BIBLE. 

arise among themselves, they would justly regard him with 
horror and execration." 

To exhibit a corresponding picture of Roman manners, 
Mr. H. presents his readers with the observations of a 
Christian stranger, who might have visited Rome in the 
first century after our Saviour's ministry on earth : 

" The door of the house in which he is received, to the 
distress of every Christian sentiment, is opened by a chain- 
ed slave. He is conducted to the master of the house, who 
is at supper, and is invited to take a place at the banquet. 
Instead of that liberal equality which has been introduced 
by the general prevalence of the Christian dispensation, and 
which has smoothed the irregularities of society, and ren- 
dered persons of a more distinguished opulence and rank 
attentive to the sensibilities of the poorer and more hum- 
ble classes of society, he finds the inferior guests studiously 
reminded of their subordinate condition, removed to a 
distance from the luxurious table of the master of the feast, 
aud insulted by the offensive coarseness of their entertain- 
ment. During a scene of the greatest gluttony and in- 
temperance, he is opprest, as the spirits of the party 
become elevated, by the most appalling licentiousness of 
conversation. A father speaks of the difficulty he had 
found in persuading his wife to the murder of their new 
born infant. The young men boast of their successful 
rapes, their perilous adulteries, or their unnatural attach- 
ments. Disgusted with these appalling circumstances, the 
Christian visitor might omit remarking on the unbridled 
^sensuality with which his new companions surrender them- 
selves to the protracted, pleasures of the table, as if to eat 
were the first privileges of existence, and they had arti- 
ficially increased their appetites, that they might lengthen 
their capacity of indulgence. Wearied of such society, he 
retires to his chamber, but not to rest ; for his repose is 
broken by the noise of whips and lashes, and the cries of 



TEIUMPIIS OF THE BIBLE. 31 

the chastised slaves, whom the master of some neighboring 
mansion is rigorously correcting. In the morning he pre- 
pares to accompany his host to the exhibitions of the 
Circus. As they are departing from the house, an aged 
and half-starved slave timidly endeavors to elude their 
observation ; he is detected ; his master notices his infirmi- 
ties, and orders that he should no longer be retained as an 
unprofitable expense and incumbrance to his household, but 
should be exposed to die of starvation, in recompense for 
the labors of his youth. The Christian remonstrates against 
this act of cruelty : he assures his host that not a single 
individual of his own religion would be guilty of such bar- 
barity, even to one of the inferior creatures — to the aged 
hound, or the drooping war horse — if it had been service- 
able to his interests or his amusements. The heathen can- 
not comprehend his sentiments. He informs his guest that 
this is the usual method of disposing of all superannuated 
domestics ; that some masters suffer them to starve to 
death about their houses ; that others leave them to perish 
on an island in the Tiber ; that others cast them alive into 
their preserves to fatten their fish ; that, in short, the prac- 
tice was universal among his countrymen, and adopted 
without remorse, sanctioned by the example of the illus- 
trious Cato, and one from which, as it was extremely con- 
venient, he could see no reason for departing. The Chris- 
tian is silenced ; they proceed to the theatre. On their 
way, they pass a company of Patrician youths, one of whom 
is on the point of exhibiting his dexterity in the use of the 
broad-sword. A poor wretch, suffering from the deep 
afflictions of domestic misery, has been bribed, by the offer 
of a few minse, to devote himself as the victim of the bar- 
barous experiment, on condition that the necessities of his 
family should be relieved by the stipulated purchase-money 
of his murder. They arrive at the Coliseum. There is 
great difficulty in securing situations. Nearly forty thou- 



82 TRIUMPHS OF THE BIBLE. 

sand persons are already impatiently assembled. It is a day 
of extraordinary expectation. Many celebrated gladiators 
are to be brought on the arena. It is anticipated that 
some hundreds will be slaughtered in the various conflicts 
which are appointed to succeed each other in the progress 
of the entertainment ; but a more than usual curiosity and 
interest is excited for those contests, in which the ill-fated 
wretches are to be exposed in opposition to the wild beasts 
of the desert or the forest, as on this occasion the lions and 
the panthers have been fed on human flesh, for the purpose 
of sharpening their thirst of blood, and stimulating the keen- 
ness of their ferocity. Unable to sustain the sight — while 
the first victim is expiring, unpitied and unregarded, amid 
the thunders of acclamation that reward the exertions of 
his competitor — the Christian visitor of the heathen capital 
hastily withdraws himself from the scene of sanguinary festi- 
val. He is immediately followed by his host, who ridicules 
his compassion on the authority of the most approved phi- 
losophers, and interrupts his eloquent lamentations over the 
departure of the ancient virtue and simplicity of the Roman 
character, by assurances, that the people have not degene- 
rated ; that vice may have varied in its form, but not increas- 
ed in magnitude ; that its ratio has been permanent and 
equal ; and that, whatever enormities may have been engen- 
dered of power and luxury and refinement, at all events, 
those ruder ages could never be deserving of regret, during 
which a supposed pestilence, that appeared to be depopulat- 
ing the city, was discovered to be effected by the prevalency 
of the art of poisoning ; a practice which was so accordant 
to the morals and sentiments of the people, that the prsetor 
in a single province, after having capitally punished three 
thousand persons for the offence, still complained of the 
increasing number of the accusations. 

" In the above sketch of the private morals of the ancient 
Romans; I have studiously cast a veil over that horrible and 



TEIUMPHS OF THE BIBLE. 33 

undisguised imparity which saturated the whole body of 
society; which haunted the precincts of their temples; 
which mingled with their religious rites and festivals; 
which so frequently made the subject of their conversation 
and their poetry; which addressed the grossness of the 
public mind in the signs exhibited in their streets, and in 
the monuments that defiled their gardens, and of which the 
images were constantly before the eyes, to pollute and debase 
the soul, engraved on the common utensils of daily existence, 
on their lamps and their vases and their drinking vessels." 

Such was the social condition of those celebrated nations, 
ere the Gospel had put forth among them its renovating 
power and purified the fountains of domestic life. In the 
monuments of sanctified benevolence alone with which 
Christian lands are studded, we have abundant evidence of 
the tendency of Christianity to confer blessings upon man. 

" Her coming found the heathen world without a single 
house of mercy. Search the Byzantine Chronicles and the 
pages of Publius Victor ; and though the one describes all 
the public edifices of ancient Constantinople, and the other 
of ancient Rome, not a word is to be found in either of a 
charitable institution. Search the ancient marbles in your 
museums ; descend and ransack the graves of Herculaneum 
and Pompeii ; and question the many travellers who have 
visited the ruined cities of Greece and Rome ; and see, if 
amid all the splendid remains of statues and amphitheatres, 
baths and granaries, temples, aqueducts and palaces, mauso- 
leums, columns and triumphal arches, a single fragment or 
inscription can be found, telling us that it belonged to a 
refuge for human want, or for the alleviation of human 
misery." l All the asylums on earth for poverty, decrepi- 

1 Dr. Harris's " Great Commission." The progress of the moral triumph 

which Christianity ultimately achieved in Rome is thus finely delineated in 

the great work of Dean Milman : " Rome must be imagined in the vastness 

and uniformity of its social condition, the mingling and confusion of races, 

2* 



34 TRIUMPHS OF THE BIBLE. 

tude and disease, are to be traced to the influence of the 
Bible. Yet this is but a small part of the benefits it has 
conferred on all those countries where it has been received 
and according to the degree in which it has prevailed. 
What but the religion of the Bible has banished vices and 
abominations of classic Paganism, practised and avowed by 
the great and the respected, to hide themselves from pub- 
lic scorn, if they still exist upon earth? What else has 
abolished serfdom in modern Europe, and is bringing on 
the time, slowly it may be, but surely, when whatever ine- 
qualities of condition may still exist, man shall universally 
recognize a brother in man ? ' And though it has not yet 
made wars to cease, what else has softened war's horrors 
and rendered comparatively unheard of the barbarities of 

languages, conditions, in order to conceive the slow, imperceptible, yet con- 
tinuous progress of Christianity. Amid the affairs of the universal empire, 
the perpetual revolutions which were constantly calling up new dynasties, or 
new masters over the world, the pomp and state of the imperial palace, the 
commerce, the business flowing in from all parts of the world, the bustle of 
the Basilicas, or courts of law, the ordinary religious ceremonies, or the more 
splendid rites on signal occasions, which still went on, if with diminishing 
concourse of worshippers, with their old sumptuousness, magnificence and 
frequency, the public games, the theatres, the gladiatorial shows, the Lucul- 
lan or Apician banquets, Christianity was gradually withdrawing from the 
heterogeneous mass some of all orders, even slaves, out of the vices, the ig- 
norance, the misery of that corrupted social system. It was instilling hu- 
manity, yet unknown, or coldly commended by an impotent philosophy, 
among men and women whose infant ears had been habituated to the shrieks 
of dying gladiators ; it was giving dignity to minds prostrated by years, al- 
most centuries, of degrading despotism ; it was nurturing purity and modes- 
ty of manners in an unspeakable state of deprivation ; it was enshrining the 
marriage-bed in a sanctity long almost entirely lost, and rekindling to a 
steady warmth the domestic affections ; it was substituting a simple, calm 
and rational faith and worship for the worn-out superstitions of heathenism ; 
gently establishing in the soul of man the sense of immortality, till it became 
a natural and inextinguishable part of his moral being." Latin Christianity, 
vol. i, p. 26. 

1 " Christianity," the profound De Tocqueville has remarked, "is the 
companion of liberty in all its conflicts — the cradle of its. infancy, and the 
divine source of its claims." 



TFJUMPHS OF THE BIBLE. 35 

former conflicts ? What has raised the female sex from the 
degraded position which they still occupy in lands unblessed 
with the light of revelation ? What has united liberty and 
law, and thrown a sanction and security around the rights 
and possessions of the weak and the defenceless, the widow 
and the orphan, which did not formerly exist ? What has 
shed such benign efficacy on the social relationships of life, 
on the ties which bind together husband and wife, parent 
and child, and thus made " home " a sacred electric word ? 
The only answer that can be given is, that it is the religion 
of the Bible which has scattered such countless blessings in 
its path. Nothing else will explain these beneficent changes 
but the cause which the eminent Chancellor Kent thus as- 
signs : "The influence of Christianity has been very efficient 
toward the introduction of a better and. more enlightened 
sense of right and justice among the several governments 
of Europe. It taught the duty of benevolence to strangers, 
of humanity to the vanquished, of the obligation of good 
faith, — of the sin of murder, revenge, and rapacity. The 
history of Europe, during the earlier periods of modern 
history, abounds with interesting and strong cases, to show 
the authority of the Church over turbulent princes and 
fierce warriors, and the effect of that authority in melior- 
ating manners, checking violence, and introducing ?; system 
of morals which inculcated peace, moderation, and justice." 1 
Where the Bible is unknown, man is still sunk in debasing 
ignorance, idolatry and superstition, "without God and 
without hope in the world." Where it is unknown, woman 
is still degraded and enslaved, and infanticide and other 
crimes against nature, are tolerated if not enjoined. Wher- 
ever it has come, like the healing gale of spring changing 
the scene of wintry desolation into one of life and loveliness, 
it has caused the moral desert to rejoice and blossom as the 
rose. It has renovated the character of individuals, fanii- 

1 Kent's Commentaries, vol. i, p. 9. 



36 TRIUMPHS OF THE BIBLE. 

lies, and nations ; and in the proportion in which its influ- 
ence has been felt, it has banished sin and misery from the 
abodes of men. " Give me," said the old Christian father 
Lactantius, " a man who is choleric, abusive in his language, 
headstrong and unruly ; with a very few words, — the words 
of God, — I will render him as gentle as a lamb. Give me a 
greedy, covetous, parsimonious man, and I will presently 
return him you a generous creature, freely bestowing his 
money by handfuls. Give me a cruel and bloodthirsty 
man; instantly his ferocity shall be transformed into a 
truly mild and merciful disposition. Give me an unjust 
man, a foolish man, a sinful man ; and on a sudden he shall 
become honest, wise, and virtuous. So great is the efficacy 
of divine wisdom when once admitted into the human 
heart." In what innumerable instances has that pledge 
been redeemed ! Bringing with it "the promise of the life 
that now is," as well as " of that which is to come," Chris- 
tianity diffuses order and happiness over the whole surface 
of human society, and even adds features of additional love- 
liness to the scenery of nature. " The swamp and the mo- 
rass disappear before the labors of industry and the habita- 
tions of men. The pride of cities and the monuments of art 
now dazzle and surprise, where nothing was once beheld but 
the rude cairn, piled in loneliness and silence to mark the 
scene consecrated to infernal offerings, and rights of pollu- 
tion and death. Temples and palaces glitter amidst the 
waste, and commerce gladdens with her ships, her harbors 
and her merchandise, shores once abandoned to solitude 
and desolation. Ferocity gives place to gentleness, steril- 
ity to beauty; and while it changes the desert into fruitful- 
ness, it elevates the savage into a man." And all this is 
even now being exemplified. In lands which but a few i 
years since lay in heathen darkness — where devils were 
worshipped and crime w^as hallowed — where men roved un- 
tamed as the beasts of their forests, and revelled in deeds 



TRIUMPHS OF THE BIBLE. 37 

of cruelty and bloodshed, — under the auspices of Christian 
missionaries, this blessed transformation may even now be 
seen. Thousands of once wretched beings, emerging from 
their moral degradation, at this moment are ascribing their 
enfranchisement to that benign interposition. The rude 
Bushman of South Africa, the painted savage of Polynesia, 
advanced to the privileges and blessings of civilized life, are 
living witnesses of what the religion of the Bible can accom- 
plish even for man's temporal welfare. And if a tree is 
known by its fruits, may we not confidently point to such 
effects as a proof which can not be controverted, of the 
divinity of its origin? "Men do not gather grapes of 
thorns or figs of thistles." 

It is true that compared with the vastness of the field 
for which it is designed, the beneficial effects of Christianity 
are as yet but limited, and there is much in the present as- 
pect and condition of the world to counterbalance the aus- 
picious signs of progress. " Contrary to rash expectations, 
gleams of light and hope, alternating with massive clouds 
and shadows, have passed over the stage of the civilized 
world like dissolving views, one melting into another, fleet- 
ing by while we are gazing, and that so swiftly, that we are 
kept in breathless uncertainty what will come next." When, 
indeed, we consider the unrest and turbulence which during 
the present age have characterized the most civilized nations 
— the outbreakings of human passion and lawlessness that 
have threatened the demolition of the social fabric — " the 
winds and the waves roaring and men's hearts failing them 
for fear," — it would at times even seem that we were re- 
ceding from rather than approaching a brighter day. But 
seen in the light of prophecy, these apparently disastrous 
omens indicate that the long deferred hope of ages is hasten- 
ing to its fulfilment. The groan and travail of the world 
will yet have a glorious consummation ! Through all the 
seething fermentation which society exhibits, and which is 



38 TEIUMPHS OF THE BIBLE. 

a consequence of the emancipation of the general mind from 
blind unreasoning acquiescence in whatever wore the sem- 
blance of authority, under the ever present agency and con- 
trol of that Divine Spirit who of old brooded over Chaos, 
the process still goes on, which is to bring it to its destined 
form and law. The mission of the Bible will be accom- 
plished — its ideal be realized. " The chemist has his solu- 
tion that requires but one added drop to bring out its crys- 
tals, yet that solution may grow purer and purer, and so at 
the moment of completion may form a finer gem than had 
it come before. So also year by year one error after 
another is precipitated and the world's thought grows 
clearer, though it cannot rest, until at length the magic 
moment of the Bible's spiritual alchemy will arrive, when 
its hand shall drop the living truth, and the waiting world 
shall flash into solid order and crystalline beauty." 1 The 
last vestiges of sin and misery shall then disappear, and 
throughout a regenerated earth shall arise " scenes surpass- 
ing fable" to bear witness that its work is done. "For 
as the rain cometh down and the snow from heaven, and 
returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh 
it bring forth and bud .... so shall My word be that 
goeth forth out of My month ; it shall not return unto Me 
void .... instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, 
and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree." 

"Hethought there were long ages come and gone, 
Pale worlds were crumbling to their last decay. 
Far in the East a coming glory shone, 
And morning broke, the morning of that day 
Never again to set ; a slanted ray 
Bridged earth and heaven with its quivering flame, 
Thereon an angel trod his rushing way, 

1 For the above beautiful illustration, I am indebted to a speech of remark- 
able power delivered before tbe Am. Bible Society, by the late Kev. A. D. R. 
Mercein, a gifted minister of the Methodist Communion. 



TRIUMPHS OF THE BIBLE. 39 

And folding a white wing and flashing came, 
Sounded a golden blast, and hastened to proclaim,- 

" Glory to God, salvation and release ! 
Tell it among the nations, tell it wide, 
1 Glory to God on high, on earth be peace.' 
So shouted he, so sang ; from side to side, 
4 Amen ! Amen ! ' the morning stars replied ; 
The winds were heralds of their minstrelsy, 
The clouds upbore it till the echoes died, 
Answered the billowy voices of the sea, 
And utmost earth's acclaim formed meet antistrophe." 
Cambridge Prize Poem. 

By J. S. Gibson. 

But we also claim for the Bible, that not only is it the 
great almoner of temporal blessings to mankind, alleviating 
the lot of the afflicted, the destitute and the oppressed, not 
only is it the civilizer of manners and elevator of morals, 
but it has been the great agent of man's intellectual advance- 
ment. Inquire where intelligence is most diffused among 
the people, where the arts and sciences have mac^e the 
greatest advancement, where literature is most cultivated 
and progress the most realized, and it will be found that 
the favored lands are those in which the Bible is circulated 
and has most obtained sway. 

It is true that long previous to the Christian era, and 
among nations upon whom the light of revelation had not 
dawned, a high state of civilization had been attained. 
There were in the old classic world, poets of undying fame, 
philosophers of wonderful subtilty and profundity of 
thought, orators whose eloquence still transmits its thrill- 
ing echoes down " the corridors of time ; " there were 
magnificent works of art and stately palaces and temples, 



Skill of noblest architects. 



With gilded battlements conspicuous far, 
Turrets and terraces, and glitt'ring spires. 



40 TRIUMPHS OF THE BIBLE. 

Many a fair edifice besides, more like 

Houses of gods, ***** pillars and roofs, 

Carv'd work, the hand of fam'd artificers 

In cedar, marble, ivory, or gold." — Paradise Regained. 

No brighter eras of intellectual achievement have since 
appeared than the ages of Pericles and Augustus. The 
lays of Homer and Virgil — the orations of Demosthenes and 
Cicero — the histories of Thucydides and Tacitus — the Par- 
thenon, the Yenus de Medici and the Apollo Belvidere, 
are still types of ideal excellence in Literature and in Art. 
"The poetic legend, the gleaming marble, the pillared 
temple, the speaking statue, — the graceful robe, the mystic 
fillet, the tragic cothurnus, the symbolic procession, the 
bearded pontiff, the mighty orator, the crowned monarch, 
the visioned sage, — the charm of the scenery, the clearness 
of the atmosphere, the beauty of the climate, the imagina- 
tion of the multitude, — dome bending itself to the azure 
concave above it, pediment sculptured with the dreams of 
the classic antiquity, — the intermixture of all with the insti- 
tutions of education and policy, — its ever present recollec- 
tion in gymnasium as well as sanctuary, — the romance and 
pageant, — the exhaustion of taste, genius, and splendor 
upon its fables and ceremonies, — even to our times, consti- 
tute the ancient Paganism a marvel of all that was attrac- 
tive and magnificent." 1 But in all that refined culture and 

1 Prize Essay on Christian Missions by Dr. Hamilton, of Leeds. In this 
connection, a very remarkable but undeniable historical fact may be stated, 
which certainly claims a place among the " difficulties of Infidelity : " 
" Whilst all the surrounding world lay immersed in the profoundest moral 
darkness ; whilst Egypt, which has been celebrated as the instructress of 
mankind, lay grovelling before her oxen, her birds, her reptiles, and her 
potherbs; whilst Grecian and Roman altars, even at a moment when heathen 
refinement was at its highest, were smoking before the emblems of the gross- 
est appetites and of the rankest intemperance ; — there in an obscure corner 
of the globe, overlooked and despised by the surrounding nations, was to be 
seen the astonishing spectacle of one small people, with no literature but 
their own sacred books, no arts but those derived from a most limited and 



TEIUMPHS OF THE BIBLE. 41 

splendid civilization, there was a worm at the core, — a 
vital, irremediable defect. As unconsciously but signifi- 
cantly expressed in the Athenian symbol of the golden 
grasshopper, it was of the earth earthy. This world and 
its regalements for the life of sense, were its all. The 
beautiful was there in an unequalled development, but it 
lacked the good and the true. " There was no provision 
for the wants of the inner man. Heathenism had no line 
to reach the depths of human depravity, and no power to 
raise up man from his degradation, to break the spell by 
which he was bound to sensual objects, and to set his spirit 
free. It had no object of religious worship fitted to call 
forth love, veneration, gratitude ; and no body of truth 
that could be instrumental in purifying and ennobling man's 
mental powers, in connecting him with the higher world, 
and renewing him after the image of God." Some portion 
of primitive truth and traditional morality it had indeed 
possessed, and while this was retained, it was the salt which 
kept it from corruption, the cement which held it from 
dissolution. But when, by the increase of luxury and vice, 
these had become obliterated, then literature, philosophy 
and art, all hastened to decay. The fire went out upon its 
altars. Destitute of those higher influences which Christian 
faith alone can supply, it was like a magnificent structure 
built upon the sand, and when the barbarian torrent came, 
it was already tottering to its fall. 

But from the first, the religion of the Bible proved itself 
to be the true element, both of intellectual progress and 
conservation. Even amid the decaying embers of the 
ancient civilization, it kindled a flame which gave evidence 

unwilling intercourse with their neighbors, celebrating as they had done for 
ages the praises of the great unseen immaterial Creator of the universe, in 
sentiments the justness and sublimity of which poetry in her highest flights 
has never to this day been able to equal, nor philosophy in her utmost pride 
of discovery to improve." — Bishop Shuttleworth. 



42 TKIUMPHS OF THE BIBLE. 

of its heavenly descent. Dispelling the gloom which had 
rested on the future, it supplied fresh motives for the exer- 
cise of the mental powers, roused faculties which had long 
lain dormant, and gave vitality to reason and thought. 
The master spirits of the world soon ranged themselves on 
its side, and after the second century of the Christian era, 
with few exceptions, the literature of Greece and Rome is 
to be looked for in the pages of the Christian fathers alone. 
"With the introduction of Christianity among the various 
nations of Europe, knowledge was its inseparable attendant. 
The most assiduous cultivators of learning in those early 
ages were the pioneers and advocates of the Gospel. In 
the fourth century Ulphilas, bishop of the Moesian Goths, 
introduced a written language as well as translated the 
Scriptures into the vulgar tongue for his illiterate country- 
men. And so great was their improvement under his in- 
structions, that some of the Goths soon made such attain- 
ments as to be able to compare their version with the 
Latin, the Greek, and the Hebrew originals. Before the 
Gospel was brought to its shores in the fifth century, Ire- 
land was almost utterly uncivilized. Its natives were with- 
out an alphabet, and rude ballads committed to memory 
were the only vehicles to preserve any knowledge of their 
history and antiquities, the genealogies of their kings and 
the exploits of their heroes. The ability to recite a num- 
ber of these verses was considered as a high accomplish- 
ment, and the bard who made any addition to them was 
certain of fame and reward. The coming of Christian mis- 
sionaries, however, redeemed them from ignorance, and so 
rapid was their progress that in the next age Ireland was 
called the country of saints and of learned men. During 
the eighth and the early part of the ninth centuries, when 
learning had been driven from her ancient seats, Ireland 
was, as Aldhelm, Bede, and Camden inform us, " the sacred 
mart of letters," whither " troops of scholars were daily 



TEIUMPnS OP THE BIBLE. 43 

transported to be initiated by her learned masters in the 
treasures of the Greek and Roman classics and of divine 
knowledge." And with Ireland, let Iona also be mention- 
ed, designated by Johnson as " that illustrious island, which 
was once the luminary of the Caledonian regions, where 
savage clans and roving barbarians derived the benefits of 
knowledge and the blessings of religion." Nor was Eng- 
land reclaimed from barbarism until the conversion of her 
Saxon conquerors in the sixth century to Christianity. 
When, by the preaching of the Word, the fierce tribes of 
Hengist and Horsa were persuaded to exchange " dark idol 
prayer and hoarse battle-cry" for the "hallelujahs" of 
Christian worship ; then, and not till then, did the " sceptred 
isle " enter upon the career, to be made so illustrious by 
the masters of science and of song. a The Danes, Swedes, 
and Cimbri of the North, were still in heathen ignorance, 
when, in the ninth century, Ansgarius, the chief apostle of 
the Scandinavians, came to bring them the Gospel and to 
establish schools for the instruction of their youth. During 
the same century, two Greek monks, Cyril and Methodius, 
sons of Leo, a Greek nobleman, were the instruments not 
only of Christianizing, but of civilizing the Bulgarians, 
Moravians, and Bohemians. To the zeal of these mission- 
aries, were those nations indebted for an alphabet as well 
as for the knowledge of revealed truth. So late as the 
latter part of the ninth century, the people of Russia were 

i The civilization of the Roman conquerors of ancient Britain in the course 
of four centuries had made so little impression on its inhabitants that in the 
reign of Constantine that famous island was regarded, says Macaulay, in the 
polished East " with mysterious horror— a region inhabited by the ghosts of 
the departed, where the ground was covered by serpents, and the air was 
such that no man could inhale it and live." 

The successors of the Romans were the savage worshippers of Woden, 
and until the Gospel of Christ came to them, " England knew no church 
within the limits of their sway, but the temple of an idol; no priesthood but 
that of Paganism ; no god but the sun, the moon, or some hideous image." 
Sermon preached before the University of Cambridge, A. D. 1573. 



44 TEIUMPHS OF THE BIBLE. 

still in savage barbarism, nor were they rescued from it 
until the teachers of Christianity brought with them, at the 
same time, the Gospel and letters, the rudiments of the 
arts, of law and of order. And thus with all the onoe bar- 
barous nations of Europe; their introduction to letters was 
simultaneous with their conversion to Christianity. 

When it is considered that these intellectual triumphs 
accompanying the propagation of the Gospel were achieved 
during those centuries, when a night of ignorance, deep as 
Egyptian darkness, had settled over the dismembered frag- 
ments of the Roman Empire, we must feel that the great 
Historian only utters the voice of truth when he says : " The 
Church has many times been compared by divines to the 
ark of which we read in the book of Genesis; but never 
was the resemblance more perfect than during that evil 
time when she alone rode, amidst darkness and tempest, 
on the deluge beneath which all the great works of ancient 
power and wisdom lay entombed, bearing within her that 
feeble germ from which a second and more glorious civili- 
zation was to spring." * As the barbarian flood receded, 
the seeds proceeding from that " feeble germ " were scat- 
tered over the new and virgin soil which it left. Gradual- 
ly, with whatever perversions and admixtures, the trutl ^ 
and principles of the Bible were diffused among the rising 
nations, and thus was a foundation laid for social and civil 
advancement. By a necessary consequence, intelligence 
was quickened and learning revived; this effect reacted upon 
Christianity, and we know from History that the daybreak 
of letters was coeval with the dawn of the Reformation. 
When the long night was passed, the sun of* righteousness 
and the sun of science rose together, and to that blending 
and interfusing of moral and spiritual with intellectual light, 
the marvellous career of the human mind which was then 
inaugurated, and the triumphs of research and discovery 

1 Macaulay's History of England. 



TEIUilPHS OF THE BIBLE. 45 

which have made illustrious the ages since, must be ascribed. 
For the greatest boon of the Reformation was to remove 
the Papal Interdict from the Bible and bring it within the 
reach of the people. And what was the effect of this upon 
literature? It is indisputable that "the study of the 
Scriptures in the vulgar tongue by the mass of the people, 
and by scholars in the original Hebrew and Greek, was the 
initiatory step to various other departments of knowledge, 
and led to investigations in History, Laws, Geography, and 
Antiquities, not less than in Theology. Amid the intellec- 
tual excitement thus occasioned, principles were evolved, 
destined to change the face of society, — to lead society for- 
ward to the great discoveries of modern times, and to 
impart to literature a degree of vigor, originality, and in- 
fluence on the progress of society hitherto unexampled." 
And how could it be otherwise ? There are a power and 
majesty breathing froni the sacred page which must needs 
have expanded and ennobled the mind once emancipated 
from the errors of superstition. Its sublime doctrines, its 
pure and lofty precepts, imposing as they then were from 
their novelty as well as from their grandeur, could not fail 
to have taken the strongest hold upon the .intellect, the 
imagination and the heart, upon every faculty and every 
affection of our nature. The surpassing literary attractions 
of the Bible, moreover, were well fitted to strengthen and 
deepen the impression. "The Scriptures contain," says 
Sir William Jones (whose competency to pronounce such a 
judgment cannot be impugned), "independently of a di- 
vine origin, more true sublimity, more exquisite beauty, 
purer morality, more important history, and finer strains 
of poetry, than could be collected within the same compass, 
from all other books that were composed in any age, or in 
any idiom." Here was opened a poetic fountain more in- 
spiring far than any at which the Grecian Muse 1 ever drank. 

1 There is a fine passage in the preface to Cowley's Davideis on the un- 
rivalled superiority of the sacred oracles, which may here be cited : " What 



46 TEIUMPHS OF THE BIBLE. 

Another accomplished scholar * says,—" In lyric flow and 
fire, in crushing force, in majesty that seems still to echo 
the awful sounds once heard beneath the thunder-clouds 
of Sinai, the poetry of the ancient Scriptures is the most 
superb that ever burned within the breast of man. The 
picturesque simplicity of their narration gives an equal 
charm to the historical books. Vigor, beauty, sententious- 
ness, variety, enrich and adorn the ethical parts of the col- 
lection." "What is there equal in romantic interest to the 
story of Joseph and his brethren ; of Rachel and Laban, of 
Jacob's dream, of Ruth and Boaz, the descriptions in the 
book of Job, the deliverance of the Jews out of Egypt, or 
the account of their captivity and return from Babylon ? 
There is in all these parts of Scripture, and numberless 
more of the same kind, to pass over the Orphic hymns of 
David, the prophetic denunciations of Isaiah, or the gorgeous 
visions of Ezekiel, an originality, a vastness of conception, a 
depth and tenderness of feeling, a touching simplicity in the 
mode of narration," 2 unmatched and unapproachable even 
by classical antiquity. The whole story of redeeming love, 
the Son of God incarnate, the cradle and the manger, the 
cross and the crown in heaven, the spiritual warfare and 

can we imagine more proper for the ornaments of wit and learning, in the 
story of Deucalion, than in that of Noah? Why will not the actions of Sam- 
son afford as plentiful matter as the labors of Hercules ? Why is not Jephthah's 
daughter as good a woman as Iphigenia? and the friendship of David and 
Jonathan more worthy celebration than that of Theseus and Piritbous ? Does 
not the passage of Moses and the Israelites into the Holy Land yield incom- 
parably more poetic variety than the voyages of Ulysses or iEneas ? Are 
the obsolete, threadbare tales of Thebes and Troy half so stored with great, 
heroical, and supernatural actions (since verse will needs find or make such), 
as the wars of Joshua, of the Judges, of David, and divers others? Can all 
the transformations of the gods give such copious hints to flourish and expa- 
tiate upon, as the true miracles of Christ, or of his prophets and apostles? 
What do I instance in these few particulars ? All the books of the Bible are 
either already most admirable and exalted pieces of poesy, or are the best 
materials in the world for it." 

i Sir Daniel K. Sandford. 2 Hazlitt. 



TKIUMPHS OP THE BIBLE. 47 

the final triumph, when his people shall reign with Christ, 
are fraught with deeper wonder and sublimer romance, 
than ever thought of man conceived. They are replete 
with poetic as well as with evangelic inspiration. a Indited 
under the influence of Him, to whom all hearts are known, 
and all events foreknown, they suit mankind in all situa- 
tions, grateful as the manna which descended from above 
and conformed itself to every palate. The fairest produc- 
tions of human wit, after a few perusals, like gathered 
flowers wither in our hands, and lose their fragrancy ; but 
these unfading flowers of Paradise become, as we are ac- 
customed to them, still more and more beautiful; their 
bloom appears to be daily heightened, fresh odors are 
emitted, and new sweets extracted from them." Here at 
Siloa's brook and not at the Pierian spring, Dante and Mil- 
ton drank their copious draughts of unearthly sublimity, 
and were animated for their noblest flights. Here Michael 
Angelo and Raphael filled their golden urns, and by their 
labors, Art emancipated from the sensualism of Pagan 
dreams, vindicated her heavenly origin. 

That was indeed a timely vindication, and the result 
was a triumph of Scripture truth deserving of special com- 
memoration. For although the revival of art and literature 
in Europe was under Christian auspices, yet at the era of 
the Reformation, the classical school had become the ruling 
power in both, and no themes but those of Greek and 
Roman story were thought worthy to employ the powers 
of genius. This reaction is thus accounted for by Henry 
Heine in his w^ork on German literature : " The arts are 
nothing but the mirrors of life, and as Catholicism was 
extinguished in life, so also did it grow 'faint and die away 
in art .... A contemporary Protestantism at that time was 
stirring in art equally as in life .... It was then as if men 
felt themselves suddenly freed from an oppression of a 
thousand years ; the artists above all breathed freely again, 



48 TRIUMPHS OF THE BIBLE. 

as the Alp of Catholicism seemed rolled from the breast ; 
they plunged enthusiastically into the sea of Greek glad- 
ness, out of whose foam the Goddess of Beauty again 
emerged for them ; the painters painted again the ambro- 
sial joy of Olympus, the sculptors chiselled again, with the 
same pleasure as of old, the ancient heroes out of the marble 
block ; the poets celebrated again the house of Atreus and 
Laius ; the period of the new classical poetry arose." 

Yet vain was the endeavor to impart spirit and life 
to the faded forms and shadows of antiquity. " Phoebus' 
chariot course was run," Pan was dead, the sacred fire of 
Vesta could not be rekindled. But the unequalled pro- 
ductions of the mighty masters who sleep in Santa Croce 
and the Pantheon, proved that the true Promethean spark 
was in the Bible, and that art lost nothing by becoming 
Christian, even though all the mythic fancies which " live 
no longer in the faith of reason," should vanish into the 
mists of the past. 

" Tlien sculpture and her sister arts revive, 
Stones leaped to form and rocks began to live ; 
With sweeter notes each rising temple rung, 
A Raphael painted and a Vida sung." — Pope. 

Thus was the returning wave of classicism arrested, 
and now what Homer was in the ancient world, that has 
the Bible become in the modern, in relation to poetry and 
all the imitative arts — the inspiring source of beauty and 
sublimity — the model and archetype of expression. Under 
its influence modern art has developed a power to minister 
to the desire of the elevated and the beautiful, which the 
boasted productions of the classic school, and even such of 
the chef-d'ceuvres of antiquity as have come down to us, 
cannot approach. " Look," says an eloquent writer, " at 
the sepulchral monuments of Grecian art — the frigid mys- 
teries, the abhorrent ghosts, yet too corporeal, shrinking 
from Lethe, and the dismal boat— the unpromising, un- 



TRIUMPHS OF THE BIBLE. 49 

pitying Charon : then turn to some of the sublime Christian 
monuments of art that speak so differently of that death — 
the coronation of the virgin, the ascension of saints. The 
dismal and the doleful earth has vanished — choirs of angels 
rush to welcome and support the beatified, the released : 
death is no more, but life breathing no atmosphere of earth, 
but all freshness, all joy, and all music ; the now changed 
body glowing, like an increasing light, into its spirituality 
of form and beauty, and thrilling with 

11 That undisturbed song of pure consent, 
Aye sung before the sapphire-color'd throne 
To him that sits thereon," — 

Then shall we doubt, and not dare to pronounce the 
superior capabilities of Christian art, arising out of its sub- 
ject-poetry ? We prefer, as a great poetic conception, 
Raphael's Archangel, Michael, with his victorious foot 
upon his prostrate adversary, to the far-famed Apollo 
Belvidere, who has slain his Python ; and his St. Marga- 
ret, in her sweet, her innocent, and clothed grace, to that 
perfect model of woman's form, the Venus de Medici. Not 
that we venture a careless or misgiving thought of the 
perfectness of those great antique works : their perfectness 
was according to their purpose. Higher purposes make a 
higher perfectness. Nor would we have them viewed 
irreverently ; for even in them, and the genius that pro- 
duced them, the Creator, as in " times past, left not Him- 
self without witness." In showing forth the glory of tho 
human form, they show forth the glory of Him who made 
it, who »is thus glorified in the witnesses ; and so we accept 
and love them. But to a certain degree they must stand 
dethroned, their influence faded. Graces and Muses in 
their perfectness of marbled beauty, what are they to faith, 
hope, and charity, and the veiled virtues that like our 
angels shroud themselves ? These virtues of the soul, far 
greater in their humility, in the . sacred poetry of our 
3 



50 TEIUMPHS OP THE BIBLE. 

Christian faith, shine like stars, even in their smallness on 
the dark night of our humanity ;-and they are to take place 
in the celestial of art ; and we feel that it is His will, who, 
as the hymn of the blessed Virgin — that type of all these 
united virtues — declares, " hath put down the mighty from 
their seat, and hath exalted the humble and the meek." l 

The triumphs which Christianity has achieved in Liter- 
ature and Art, were, in the beginning of her career, the 
least to have been expected. In the felicitous words of 
Dean Trench : " How many things Christianity might, at 
first sight, have threatened to leave out, to take no note of, 
or indeed utterly to suppress, which, so far from really 
warring against, it has raised to higher perfection than 
ever in the old world they had attained. With what 
despair, for example, a lover of art, one who at Athens or 
at Rome fondly had dwelt among the beautiful creations 
of poet and of painter, would have contemplated the rise 
of the new religion, and the authority which its doctrines 
were acquiring over the hearts and spirits of men. What 
a death-knell must he have heard in this to all in which his 
soul so greatly delighted. He might have been ready, per- 
haps, to acknowledge that our human life, under this new 
teaching, would be more rigorously earnest, more severe, 
more pure ; but all its grace and its beauty, all which it 
borrowed of these from the outward world, he would have 
concluded, had been laid under a ban, and must now vanish 
forever .... Little, indeed, could friend or foe of the 
nascent faith, have forecast that out of it, — that nourished 
by the Christian books, by the great thoughts which Christ 
set stirring in humanity, and of which these books kept a 
lasting record, there should unfold itself a poetry infinitely 
greater, an art infinitely higher, than any which the old 
world had seen ; that this faith, which looked, so rigid, so 
austere, even so forbidding, should clothe itself in forms of 
i Blackwood's Magazine. 



TKIUMPII3 OF THE BIBLE. 51 

grace and loveliness, such as men had never dreamt of he- 
fore ; that poetry should not he henceforward the play 
of the spirit, hut its holiest earnest ; and those skilless 
Christian hymns to Christ as to God," of which Pliny 
speaks, so rude probably in regard of form, should yet be 
the preludes of strains higher than the world had listened 
to yet. Or, who would have supposed that those artless 
paintings of the catacombs had the prophecy in them of 
more wondrous compositions than men's eyes had ever 
seen — or that a day should arrive when above many a dark 
vault and narrow crypt, where now the Christian worship- 
pers gathered in secret, should arise domes and cathedrals, 
embodying loftier ideas, because ideas relating to the 
eternal and the infinite, than all those Grecian temples, 
which now stood so fair and so strong, but which aimed 
not to lift men's minds from the earth which they adorned ? 
" How little would the one or other, would Christian or 
heathen have presaged such a future as this — that art was 
not to perish, but only to be purified and redeemed from 
the service of the flesh, and from whatever was clinging to 
and hindering it from realizing its true glory, — and that 
this book, which does not talk about such matters, w^hich 
does not make beauty but holiness, its end and aim — 
should yet be the truest nourish er of all out of which any 
genuine art has ever proceeded; the truest fosterer of 
beauty, in that it is the nourisher of the affections, the sus- 
tainer of the relations between God and man; which affec- 
tions and which relations are indeed the only root out of 
which any poetry or art worthy the name, ever have sprung. 
For these affections being laid waste, those relations being 
broken, art is first stricken with barrenness, and then, in a 
little while, withers and pines and dies — as that ancient art, 
which had been so fertile while faith survived, was, when 
the Church was born, already withering and dying under 
the influence of the scepticism, the profligacy, the decay of 



52 TRIUMPHS OF THE BIBLE. 

family and national life, the extinction of religious faith, 
which so eminently marked the time ; only having a name 
to live, resting merely on the traditions of an earlier age, 
and on the eve of utter dissolution. Such was its condi- 
tion when Christ came, and cast in his Word, as that which 
maketh all things new, into the midst of an old and decre- 
pit and wornout world." * 

The late professor Wilson has also written eloquently 
on this theme. Comparing the Christian with the old clas- 
sic world, he says in his " Eecreations : " " We seem to feel 
more profoundly than they — to see, as it were, into a new 

world Since the revelation of Christianity, all moral 

thought has been sanctified by religion. Religion has given 
to it a purity, a solemnity, a sublimity which, even amongst 
the noblest of the heathen, we shall look for in vain. The 
knowledge that shone by fits and dimly on the eyes of 
Socrates and Plato, ' that rolled in vain to find the light,' 
has descended over many lands into the ' huts w T here poor 
men lie ; ' and thoughts are familiar there, beneath the low 
and smoking roofs, higher far than ever flowed from Grecian 
sage meditating among the magnificence of his pillared tem- 
ples." 

" Christ hath sent us down the angels; 

And the whole earth and the skies 

Are illumed by altar candles 

Lit for blessed mysteries ; 

And a Priest's hand, through creation, 

Waveth calm and consecration — 

And Pan is dead." — Mrs. Browning. 

The triumphs of modern science, also, are due to the 
Bible. Not only did it communicate the intellectual im- 
pulse which led to their achievement, but the true method 
of investigation, without which all or most of them would 
have remained in impenetrable darkness, is to be ascribed 
to its influence. In all ages of the world, heathen and 

1 Hulsean Lectures, Am. ed., pp. 132-3. 



TRIUMPHS OF THE BIBLE. 53 

Christian, down to the revival of letters, when the Bible 
first reached the intellectual ascendency it has ever since 
maintained, the only test and standard of truth which men 
knew and recognized was human reason. The profoundest 
thinkers confounded physics with metaphysics, and without 
troubling themselves to observe the processes of nature as 
carried on in the mighty laboratory of the universe, pro- 
posed to possess themselves of her secrets, by using the 
rules of syllogistic art. 

" Previous to the publication of the Novum Organon 
of Bacon," says Sir John Herschel, u natural philosophy, 
in any legitimate and extensive use of the word, could 
hardly be said to exist. Among the Greek philosophers, 
of whose attainments in science alone we have any positive 
knowledge, and that but a very limited one, we are struck 
with the remarkable contrast between their powers of acute 
and subtile disputation, their extraordinary success in ab- 
stract reasoning, and their intimate familiarity with subjects 
purely intellectual, on the one hand ; and, on the other, with 
their loose and careless consideration of external nature, 
their grossly illogical deductions of sweeping generality 
from few and ill-observed facts, in some cases ; and their 
reckless assumption of abstract principles having no foun- 
dation but in their own imaginations, in others ; mere forms 
of words with nothing corresponding to them in nature, 
from which, as from mathematical definitions, postulates, 
and axioms, they imagined that all phenomena could be 
derived, all the laws of nature deduced." Thus 

" Sages after sages strove 
In vain to filter off the crystal draught 
Pure from the lees, Tvhich often more enhanced 
The thirst than slaked it, and not seldom bred 
Intoxication and delirium wild." 

But from the time that the reign of the Bible began, the 
dominion of false principles of inquiry and research in the 



54 TRIUMPHS OF THE BIBLE. 

realms of physical science began to pass away. In the light 
of revelation men learned that reason was but a blind guide 
in such high matters as the laws and order of the universe. 
They had found and recognized in the Bible an unimpeach- 
able standard for moral duty, and thus was the desire 
awakened to obtain a basis of equal certainty for the facts 
of the physical world. In the progress of human thought, 
the true province of reason with respect to revelation had 
at length been defined, and it was now understood that 
man's convictions of what is divine truth must be conse- 
quents upon and not antecedents to his examination of the 
divine word. It was perceived that man might be able to 
understand and interpret such statements and disclosures 
as the wisdom of God might see fit to make known to him; 
but that, without that aid, to discover what should be the 
principles and laws of the divine order and government, is 
beyond his power. This lesson applied with equal direct- 
ness and force to the moral and to the physical government 
of God. It furnished the lever 1 by which Lord Bacon 
overthrew the long-established scholastic philosophy, and 
" substituted induction for syllogism, fact for theory, prac- 
tical experiment for abstract speculation." Utterly discard- 
ing the idea that the human mind could determine on purely 
theoretic and a priori grounds, what facts of nature are to 
be allowed or disallowed, he showed the office of man in 
search of truth to be that of servant or interpreter, — by 
patient observation and comparison to decipher what God 
has written in the great book of nature, and thus climb 
truth's ever-ascending pathway, which, if it be steep, is yet 
open and accessible. Armed with this principle, the mighty 
genius of Bacon, like the magic wand of Prospero, dislimned 

1 " The road to true philosophy is precisely the same with that which 
leads to true religion ; and from both one and the other, unless we would en- 
ter in as little children, we must expect to be totally excluded." — Nov. Org., 
lib. i, aph. 68. 



TRIUMPHS OF THE BIBLE. 55 

the " airy charms and unsubstantial pageants " of abstract 
conceptions and subtile distinctions, among which man had 
so long been lost and bewildered, and brought him forth into 
a world of real existences. Finely and truly has Cowley 
said : 

"From these and all long errors of the way, 
In which our wandering predecessors went, 
And like th' old Hebrews, many years did stray 

In deserts of but small extent, 
Bacon, like Moses, led us forth at last ; 
The barren wilderness he past 
» Did on the very border stand 
Of the blest promis'd land, 
And from the mountain's top of his exalted wit 
Saw it himself, and show'd us it." 

The Bible, therefore, is the great intellectual elevator 
of mankind. Its influence has enlightened and schooled 
philosophy, stimulated science, ennobled poetry and art, and 
at the same time has touched all things, human life most of 
all, with sublimity and grandeur. Coeval with the infancy 
of Time, it still remains and widens in the circle of its in- 
telligence. " It adapts itself with facility to the revolutions 
of thought and feeling which shake to pieces all things else, 
— and flexibly accommodates itself to the progress of society 
and the changes of civilization. Even conquests, — the dis- 
organization of old nations, — the formation of new, — do not 
affect the continuity of its empire. It lays hold of the new 
as of the old, and transmigrates with the spirit of humanity ; 
attracting to itself, by its own moral power, in all the com- 
munities it enters, a ceaseless intensity of effort for its pro- 
pagation, illustration, and defence." " King and noble, 
peasant and pauper are delighted students of its pages. 
Philosophers have humbly gleaned from it, and legislation 
has been thankfully indebted. Its stories charm the child, 
its hopes inspirit the aged, and its promises soothe the bed 
of death. The maiden is wedded under its sanction, and 



56 TRIUMPHS OF THE BIBLE. 

the grave is closed under its comforting assurances. Its 
lessons are the essence of religion, the seminal truths of 
theology, the first principles of morals, and the guiding 
axioms of political economy. It is the theme of universal 
appeal. In the entire range of literature, no book is so 
frequently quoted or referred to. The majority of all the 
books ever published have been in connection with it. 
The Fathers commented upon it, and the subtile diviners 
of the middle ages refined upon its doctrines. It sustained 
Origen's scholarship and Chrysostom's rhetoric. It whet- 
ted the penetration of Abelard, and exercised the keen in- 
genuity of Aquinas. It gave life to the revival of letters, 
and Dante and Petrarch revelled in its imagery. It aug- 
mented the erudition of Erasmus, and roused and blessed 
the intrepidity of Luther. Its temples are the finest speci- 
mens of architecture, and the brightest triumphs of music 
are associated with its poetry. The text of no ancient 
author has summoned into operation such an amount of 
labor and learning, and it has furnished occasion for the 
most masterly examples of criticism and comment, gram- 
matical investigation, and logical analysis. It has also in- 
spired the English muse with her loftiest strains. Its beams 
gladdened Milton in his darkness, and cheered the song of 
Cowper in his sadness. It was the star which guided 
Columbus to the discovery of the New World. It fur- 
nished the panoply of that Puritan valor which shivered 
tyranny in days gone by. It is the magna charta of the 
world's regeneration and liberties. The records of false 
religion, from the Koran to the Book of Mormon, have 
owned its superiority, and surreptitiously purloined its jew- 
els. Among the Christian classics it loaded the treasures 
of Owen, charged the fulness of Hooker, barbed the point 
of Baxter, gave colors to the palette and sweep to the pen- 
cil of Bunyan, enriched the fragrant fancy of Taylor, sus- 
tained the loftiness of Howe, and strung the plummet of 



TRIUMPHS OF THE BIBLE. 57 

Edwards. In short, this collection of artless lives and let- 
ters has changed the face of the world, and ennobled my- 
riads of its population." * Not only do we owe to it our 
social and moral advantages, but the brilliant achievements 
of modern science, the miracles of modern art, and the 
master works of modern literature, are to be reckoned 
among its trophies. 

To these claims for the Bible, infidelity would, however, 
object, that the mighty change which has been wrought 
in man's moral condition, and also his intellectual advance- 
ment, are due, not to the influence of Revelation, but to 
the unfolding of our nature from its own inherent vigor 
and natural growth in its progress toward perfection. 
The philosophers of the modern " positive " school argue 
that, as an individual passes through the different stages of 
infancy, childhood, and manhood, so society, under the in- 
fluence of natural law, progresses from one generation to 
another. The whole human race is to be viewed as "a 
colossal man, whose life reaches from the creation to the 
day of judgment," 2 and to whose education, "in the econo- 
my of Providence, the poetical and legendary mythology 
of Greece and Rome, the animal worship of Egypt, the sun 
worship of the East, with their various systems of law and 
civil government," have as truly contributed as the religion 
of the Bible. Under all these means and agencies, man has 
been gradually approximating toward that goal and consum- 
mation which Creative wisdom designed he should attain. 

There is a mixture of truth with the error of this 
hypothesis, that lends it plausibility. For it is undeniable 
that man is a creature of progress and expansion, and there 
is a sense in which the philosophic poet truly says : 

" I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs, 
And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns." 

Tennyson. 

1 Dr. Eadie. 2 Dr. Temple in the Essays and Reviews. 

3* 



58 TRIUMPHS OF THE BIBLE. 

There are bounds of limitation for the inferior creation. 
The bee constructs its cell, the eagle builds its eyrie, the 
nautilus hoists its membrane sail, as they did in the early 
morning of the world, without change or improvement. 
They, and all others of every species, soon reach the full 
maturity of their being, and can rise no higher in the scale. 
But the faculties of man are not thus hopelessly circum- 
scribed. He is capable in himself of boundless improve- 
ment, and of appropriating " the long result of time," the 
accumulated treasures of knowledge and thought, which the 
agres have transmitted — 



*o v 



" Augescunt alias gentes, alias minuuntur, 
Inque brevi spatio mutantur sasela animantum, 
Et quasi cursores vital lampada tradunt." — Lucretius. 

" Nations by turns increase, by turns decay : 
Like Racers, bear the Lamp of life and live, 
And their Race done, their Lamp to others give." 

Individuals and nations perish, but the progress of humanity 
is continued. Or, to use another illustration than that 
supplied by Lucretius : " The whole gigantic growth of 
human knowledge and science may be compared to those 
deposits which geologists describe, full of the remains of 
vegetable and animal life, — beautiful once and beneficial 
still. The luxuriant foliage and huge forest growth of 
science and literature which now overshadow us, are them- 
selves rooted in strata of decaying or decayed mind, and 
derive their nourishment from them ; the very soil we turn 
is the loose detritus of thought, washed down to us through 
the long ages." The great increase in knowledge of the 
physical globe, the greater acquaintance with the powers 
and forces of the created universe, the marvellous progress 
in the inventive arts, that characterize the present age, 
have doubtless, in part at least, sprung from this accumula- 
tion. But this admission by no means implies the progress 



TRIUMPHS OF THE BIBLE. 59 

of the race in such a sense as the school of writers referred 
to contend for. Their hypothesis entirely ignores the 
necessity of such a remedial process for the restoration and 
development of man as Christianity contemplates and de- 
signs. And when we examine history, we find that that 
hypothesis completely fails as it respects the vast majority 
of our race. Where there has been progression, it can be 
shown that it has always been due, not to the operation of 
a blind inherent law, but to agencies and impulses acting 
upon it from without, and in accordance with the develop- 
ment of that " increasing purpose " or divine plan recog- 
nized by the poet. " God," it has been said, " is in history," 
and in the mighty scheme which under the superintendence 
of his ever-present agency is continually evolving, all events 
are included. The rise and fall of states and empires are 
but among the subordinate means and instrumentalities for 
promoting " the unhasting yet unresting progress of a king- 
dom, ordained ere time began, to be completed when time 
shall be no more." ' If there were such a " natural law of 
historic progress," as writers like Hegel, Comte, and Buckle 
contend for, it ought, like all the laws of nature, to be 
constant in its tendencies and uniform in its results. But 
how is this reconcilable with the fact that many of the 
countries most civilized in the days of Augustus are now in 
a state of hopeless barbarism ? It is certain that the only 
true law and the only direct line of the world's sure and 
stable progress, which can be traced in all the annals of the 
past, have been coincident with the advancement and 
prevalence of Bible truth and knowledge. If this be denied, 
how shall we solve the problem presented by such countries 
as China and Hindostan, where letters and philosophy 
flourished in those remote ages, when the cruel rites of 
Druidism were practised in Britain, and the savage tribes 
who then inhabited Germany, worshipped Odin and Thor, 
i Prof. H. B. Smith. 



60 TRIUMPHS OF THE BIBLE. 

if we contrast them as they now are, with what Christen- 
dom has become ? To what can we refer the difference, 
but to the influence of Bible truth in the latter, and its 
absence in the former ? Where that has been wanting, 
after a certain point has been reached, the progress has 
ever been in the direction indicated in the well-known lines 
of the Roman poet : 

"Damnosa quid non imminuit dies? 
jEtas parentum, pejor avis, tulit 
Nos nequiores, mox daturos 

Progeniem vitiosiorem." — Hor., Od. iii, 6. 

" Our fathers' race, 
More deeply versed in ill 
Than were their sires, hath borne us yet 
More wicked, duly to beget 
A race more wicked still." — Martin's Trans. 

"The downward tendencies of human nature, which con- 
stitute the substance of Secular, as distinguished from 
Sacred History ; the acknowledged deterioration of lan- 
guages, literatures, religions, arts, sciences, and civiliza- 
tions; the slow and sure decay of national vigor, and return 
to barbarism ; the unvarying decline from public virtue to 
public voluptuousness ; in short, the entire history of man," 1 
so far as he is or has been left to his natural development, all 
utter the same testimony. In the teeming vices of the 
great cities of Europe and America, there is abundant proof 
that man is the same now as when Horace wrote. And 
if modern communities have not sunk into the very lowest 
depths of that almost incredible profligacy that marked the , 
declining years of Roman greatness, it is to no growing 
perfectibility of human nature that we owe it, but to that. 
Gospel which modern scepticism affects to despise. It is 
the moulding, modifying influence of the precepts and 

1 Professor Shedd's Philosophy of History. 






TBIUMPHS OF THE BIBLE. 61 

truths of the Bible, wrought into all our institutions, like 
the name of Phidias in the shield of Minerva, that has 
produced the superiority of modern to ancient civilization. 
In the presence of that element, we have a safe assurance 
that the world's progress henceforth shall be onward — that 
humanity is being restored to the heights whence it fell — 
that the light of improvement now kindled, shall never 
expire. 

Were such confirmation needful, the position above 
taken might be fortified by numerous testimonies of great 
and illustrious men. On such a point, who so qualified to 
utter an opinion as England's "scholar, metaphysician, 
bard," Samuel Taylor Coleridge ? It is the recorded judg- 
ment of that imperial mind, that " for more than a thousand 
years the Bible, collectively taken, has gone hand in hand 
with civilization, science, law — in short, with the moral and 
intellectual cultivation of the species — always supporting, 
and often leading the way. Its very presence, as a believed 
Book, has rendered the nations emphatically a chosen race, 
and this, too, in exact proportion as it is more or less gener- 
ally known and studied. Of those nations which in the 
highest degree enjoy its influences, it is not too much to 
affirm, that the differences, public and private, physical, 
moral, and intellectual, are only less than what might have 
been expected from a diversity of species. Good and holy 
men, and the best and wisest of mankind, the kingly spirits 
of history, enthroned in the hearts of mighty nations, have 
borne witness to its influences, have declared it to be beyond 
compare the most perfect instrument of Humanity." 

To this eloquent utterance, may be added a similar 
testimony from America's accomplished orator and states- 
man, the Hon. Edward Everett. He says, "The highest 
historical probability can be adduced in support of the 
proposition, that, if it were possible to annihilate the Bible, 
and with it all its influences, we should destroy with it the 



62 TRIUMPHS OF THE BIBLE. 

whole spiritual system of the moral world — all our great 
moral ideas — refinement of manners — constitutional govern- 
ment — equitable administration and security of property — 
our schools, hospitals, and benevolent associations — the 
press — the fine arts — the equality of the sexes, and the bless- 
ings of the fireside ; in a word, all that distinguishes Europe 
and America from Turkey and Hindostan." 

But the greatest triumph of the Bible is the power 
which its truth imparts to fortify the believer against the 
ills of life and the fear of death. It is an affecting and 
impressive incident that is related of the closing hours of 
the most eminent and popular author of the present 
century. A few days before his death, during an interval 
of comparative ease from his malady, turning to his son-in- 
law, he expressed a wish that he should read to him. 
" From what book shall I read ? " said he. " Can you 
ask ? " the dying Scott replied ; " there is but One." ]STo 
page of his own matchless romances or enchanting poetry 
could minister comfort to him then. And to all of living 
men, there is coming a time, when they will be shut up to 
a like necessity. Life may now appear like a fairy scene, 
all nature wear a smile of -gladness, and the heart be filled 
with joy, 

" Youth on the prow and pleasure at the helm ; " 

but the spell will be broken and the enchantment disap- 
pear. For there is a reverse to the picture. " Though a 
man live many years and rejoice in them all, yet let him 
remember the days of darkness, for they shall be many." 
There is a train of inevitable evils from which the most 
favored lot is not exempt. In the garden there is a sepul- 
chre. Sickness and sorrow, weariness and pain, disappoint- 
ment and separation from those we love, and " death the 
end of earth," who shall escape these ? Unto these troubles 
man is born as the sparks fly upward. The last of them 



TBimiPHS OF THE BIBLE. 63 

has been expressively termed " the king of terrors." Apart 
from the hope which Revelation proffers, he is and ever 
has been, since the entrance of sin marred our inheritance, 
a skeleton at life's richest banquet, — in its sunniest path, a 
serpent among the flowers, — in its clearest sky, an ever- 
threatening cloud. What though the votary of ambition 
achieve the glittering prize of " youth's dreaming hope, and 
labor's midnight oil," yet the inevitable hour will come to 
close the scene and extinguish his fairest prospects. For 
what is human life ? 

" A flower that does with opening dawn arise, 
And flourishing the day, at evening dies ; 
A winged eastern blast, just skimming o'er 
The ocean's brow, and sinking on the shore ; 
A fire, whose flames through crackling stubble fly ; 
A meteor, shooting from the summer sky ; 
A bowl, adown the bending mountain rolled ; 
A bubble breaking, — and a fable told : 
A noontide shadow, and a midnight dream ; 
Are emblems, which, with semblance apt, proclaim 
Our earthly course." — Prior's Solomon. 

Viewed in this aspect alone, life seems an undesirable 
possession. "When we consider only its trials and vicissi- 
tudes, its pains, sorrows, and disappointments — that man's 
greatness ripens but to fall, and " the paths of glory lead 
but to the grave," we are ready to say with the afflicted 
patriarch, " I loathe it, I would not live alway," or with the 
world's despairing votary — 

" Known were the bill of fare before we taste, 

Who would not spurn the banquet and the board ? 
Prefer th' eternal but oblivious fast 

To life's frail fretted thread, and death's suspended sword ? " 

These lines are from a poem written by the gifted 
author of " Lacon," just before with his own hand he termi- 
nated his miserable life. To them may be appended the 
melancholy confession of that great but perverted genius 



64 TKIUMPHS OF THE BIBLE. 

Rousseau, as he approached the shores of eternity : " I 
now found myself," says he, " in the decline of life, a prey 
to tormenting maladies, and believing myself at the close 
of my career without having once tasted the sublime 
pleasures after which my heart panted. Why was it that, 
with a soul naturally expansive, whose very existence was 
benevolence, I have never found one single friend with feel- 
ings like my own ? A prey to the cravings of a heart 
which have never been satisfied, I perceived myself arrived 
at the confines of old age, and dying ere I had begun to 
live. I considered destiny as in my debt, for promises 
which she had never realized. Why was I created with 
faculties so refined, yet which were never intended to be 
adequately employed ? I felt my own value, and revenged 
myself of my fate, by recollecting and shedding tears for 
its injustice." l 

Is then this life wholly a labyrinth of confusion and dis- 
order ? a flat, and stale, and unprofitable scene of guilt and 
misery ? of power exerted without an object? of energies, 
of hopes, of sympathies, terminating in nothing ? Can it 
be that the benevolent Author of our being has left us with 
no provision for our deepest necessities — no balm for our 
sufferings— -no medicine to soothe our griefs ? IsTo ; God 
has not left his work unfinished. He has provided a remedy 
for all these ills. There is that which if cast into these 
bitter waters, they will become healthful and pleasant. 
There is that which, when all earthly hopes vanish, can re- 
place them with visions of secure and everlasting joys. 
Let a man truly believe the Bible, let him receive it as an 
authoritative revelation from God, and bow his mind and 
heart in willing submission to its blessed teachings and he 
will find that life's gloom will soon disperse and " all things 
become new." The fairest boons that earth can offer, like 
the Dead Sea fruit, may turn to ashes on the lips, but th$ 
1 Rousseau's Confessions. Part ii, book 9. 



TRIUMPHS OF THE BIBLE. 65 

talisman hence obtained will cause the water of this world 
to become wine of heaven, and the common bread of this 
life to prove angels' food. For here is abundant provision, 
exquisitely adapted, as light to the eye and music to the 
ear, to all the necessities and exigencies of our condition, in 
whatever aspect it may be viewed. " Here is authority in 
which the feebleness of the soul may rest, yet tempered 
with such an exquisite sympathy for every human weak- 
ness as the experience of a God incarnate could alone sup- 
ply. Not a doubt that is not solved ; not a fear that is not 
removed ; not a want that is not satisfied ; not a sorrow 
incident to life that is not cheered by its appropriate com- 
fort, till even life's darkest passages become beautiful in 
that flood of heavenly light and love that streams from the 
cross of Christ. Here we find pardon for sin ; reconcilia- 
tion with God ; a new life in the soul divinely implanted, 
and that beats pulse to pulse with the heart of God him- 
self; sonship with the Almighty, with those privileges of 
free intercourse, constant protection, and future inheritance 
that belong to sonship ; a new charm thrown over life ; all 
fear taken from death ; the veil of the further world up- 
lifted, and such a glimpse given of unutterable bliss that 
human language has no words to utter it, human hearts as 
yet no experience by which to measure it. All this blessed 
revelation is not an outward communication dependent for 
its efiect on the vigor of the human understanding, but is 
instinct with a Divine Spirit that sustains with almighty 
strength the feebleness of the human will, and directs the 
waywardness of the human affections." 

" Of all the bdons which God has bestowed on this apos- 
tate and orphaned creation, we are bound to say that the 
Bible is the noblest and most precious. We bring not into 
comparison with this illustrious donation the glorious sun- 
light, nor the rich sustenance which is poured forth from 
the storehouses of the earth, nor that existence itself which 



66 TEIUMPHS OF THE BIBLE. 

allows us, though dust, to soar into companionship with 
angels. The Bible is the development of man's immortali- 
ty ; the guide which informs him how he may move off 
triumphantly from a contracted and temporary sphere, and 
grasp destinies of unbounded splendor, eternity his life- 
time, and infinity his home. It is the record which tells us 
that this rebellious section of God's unlimited empire is not 
excluded from our Maker's compassion ; but that the 
creatures who move upon its surface, though they have 
basely sepulchred in sinfulness and corruption the magnifi- 
cence of their nature, are yet so dear in their ruin to Him 
who first formed them, that He hath bowed the heavens in 
order to open their graves." " It is this that has nerved 
the faith which has overcome the world ; this has strength- 
ened the martyr's heart till he has gone to death as to a 
victory, and made the valley of the shadow of death glo- 
rious with hallelujahs ; this has bound up the mourner's 
bleeding wounds, and made the tongue of the dumb to 
sing ; this has rendered the tender woman and the feeble 
child more than conquerors over all at which unassisted 
human nature shudders ; this has brightened life and sweet- 
ened death, till the pallid brow of the dead saint has be- 
come glorious as a conqueror's, and the coffin and the 
winding-sheet have been the investiture of a blessed im- 
mortality. These are the triumphs of the Bible." ' 

" Most wondrous book ! bright candle of the Lord! 
Star of eternity ! the only star 
- By which the bark of man could navigate 
The sea of life, and gain the coast of bliss 
Securely ; only star which rose on Time, 
And, on its dark and troubled billows, still, 
As generation, drifting swiftly by, 
Succeeded generation, threw a ray 
Of heaven's own light ; and to the hills of God, 
The everlasting hills, pointed the sinner's eye."- — Pollok. 

1 Garbett's Boyle Lectures. 



TRIUMPHS OF THE BIBLE. 67 

But great as have been the triumphs and achievements 
of the Bible ; though through so many centuries its adver- 
saries have assailed it in vain ; though its victories have 
been far more wonderful than those of Caesar or Alexander ; 
though it has moulded anew the life of nations, and wher- 
ever its mission has been welcomed and its influence has 
had " free course," has renewed the face of the earth ; 
though it is man's guide in the morning and noon of life, 
and both his staff and telescope when its evening shadows 
fall ; though in that dread hour when man's flesh and heart 
fail and all earthly things recede, it has so oft exhibited its 
power to light up death's glazing eye with immortal 
hope, and arm the departing believer to meet the " king 
of terrors" unappalled, yet let us not suppose that its 
earthly warfare has ceased. Its pure uncompromising doc- 
trines still call forth the enmity of the carnal mind and cor- 
rupt heart of man. "The religion which imposes self- 
restraint upon the wilful, humility upon the arrogant, mercy 
upon the cruel ; which would bend the knees of the self- 
righteous philosophers before the cross of a crucified Re- 
deemer, and which would quell all the tumultuous desires 
which attach us to this world, that it may plant the sublime 
hopes and aspirations of eternity in their room ; — that re- 
ligion can never hope to command the willing deference of 
an unconverted world. So long as a single sophism can be 
found to justify disobedience to its dictates ; so long as 
man will continue to- argue from the suggestions of passion 
rather than of cool and impartial reflection ; so long as the 
scanty area of man's knowledge will be too narrow for the 
difficulties with which it is beset, and the bad passions of 
mankind shall be ready to take advantage of those difficul- 
ties ; so long as any one branch of science shall remain un- 
investigated, and the obscurities of ancient literature aftbrd 
the slightest ground for plausible speculation ; — so long, we 
may confidently assert, will Christianity see, not only the 



68 TRIUMPHS OF THE BIBLE. 

proud, the violent, and the sensualist, but even scholars 
and philosophers drawn up in array against her." Infideli- 
ty, so often repulsed, still keeps the field, and if she inter- 
mit her efforts, it is only to recruit her forces for a new 
campaign and to assault positions hitherto unattempted. 
" There is," says an able writer, " there is coming upon the 
Church a current of doubt, deeper far and darker than 
ever swelled against her before — a current strong in learn- 
ing, crested with genius, strenuous yet calm in progress. 
It seems the last grand trial of the truth of our faith. 
Against the battlements of Zion, a motley throng have 
gathered themselves together. Socinians, atheists, doubt- 
ers, open foes and bewildered friends are in the field, al- 
though no trumpet has openly been blown, and no charge 
publicly sounded. There are the old desperadoes of infi- 
delity — the last followers of Paine and Voltaire ; there is 
the stolid, scanty and sleepy troop of the followers of 
Owen ; there follow the Communists of France, a fierce, 
disorderly crew ; the commentators of Germany come, too, 
with pick-axes in their hands, crying, l Raze it, raze it to 
the foundations.' There you see the garde-mobile, the 
vicious and vain youth of Europe. On the outskirts of the 
6ght hangs, cloudy and uncertain, a small but select band, 
whose wavering surge is surmounted by the dark and lofty 
crest of Carlyle and Emerson. { Their swords are a thou- 
sand ' — their purposes are various ; in this, however, all 
agree, that Christianity and the Bible ought to go down 
before advancing civilization." 1 Since this graphic descrip- 
tion was penned, indications have multiplied that "the 
last conflict of great principles, the final contest between 
truth and error, the mystic Armageddon, it may be, of the 
Apocalypse has, indeed, commenced. As never, since the 
Apostolic age, have the triumphs of the Bible been greater 
nor its friends more sanguine ; so never have its enemies 

1 British Quarterly Review. 



TRIUMPHS OF THE BIBLE. 69 

been more numerous and determined. To the old open 
warfare, have been added weapons of attack far more sub- 
tile and dangerous. These have been skilfully adapted to 
the refinement and. intelligence of the age ; and with a 
great show of learning and science, and not seldom under 
the garb of reverence for the Bible and adherence to 
Christianity, modern sceptics and unbelievers have aimed 
the most deadly blows against the records of our faith, and 
no conceivable appliance has been left untried for the pur- 
pose of uprooting that tree whose leaves are for the healing 
of the nations. But as the storm which beats upon the 
oak only causes it to strike its roots and fibres deeper in 
the soil, so shall these assaults continue to prove innocuous 
and unavailing. The tree which a Divine hand hath 
planted, shall still flourish in undecaying vigor and immor- 
tal beauty, when the last dagon of infidelity shall have 
fallen. The prophet of scepticism may talk contemptuously 
of " old Jew-stars gone out ; " x but the Bible yet lives. 
" Every age has more than one Erostratus ; but while 
they are quarrelling for preeminence, the temple stands 
and their torches expire. Strauss abolishes Paulns : and 
Ewald declares that in Strauss there is absolutely nothing 
new. The giants, sprung from the dragon-teeth of scep- 
ticism, slay each other, while the Bible, like the immortal 
letters of Cadmus (which are indeed its own), passes on to 
mingle with the thought and speech of all lands and all 
centnries. ,, 

But while the experience of the past and the Almighty 
care which unceasingly watches over it, assure us of the 
ultimate triumph of the Bible over all its enemies, it is the 
manifest duty of every Christian, especially in view of the* 
craft and subtilty of modern unbelief, to be armed in its 
behalf; not only to be himself convinced of "the certainty 
of those things which are most surely believed among us," 

Carlyle. 



70 TEIUMPHS OF THE BIBLE. 

but to be able to answer the cavils of the gainsayer, and to 
show that his faith rests not upon " cunningly devised fables." 
It is essential to our happiness and security, that we should 
steadfastly believe the sublime doctrines and undoubtingly 
rest on the consoling promises of the Bible ; but it is also 
requisite that we have an intelligent persuasion of the 
firmness and stability of the foundation on which they rest. 
We are not to sit idly and at ease, in unquestioning reliance 
upon lessons of custom and authority ; but we must " walk 
about Zion, and go round about her, and tell the towers 
thereof; we must mark well her bulwarks and consider 
her palaces, that we may tell to generations following, this 
God is our God forever and ever." 

As an humble aid to the performance of this duty, and 
in view of the peculiar exigencies of the Christian at the 
present time, the following pages have been written. It is 
proposed to confront the " oppositions of science falsely so 
called," and the doubts and difficulties of modern scepti- 
cism, and to establish the Harmony of the Bible with the 
facts of Physical Science, and also the Historical Accuracy 
and Reality of its statements and narratives. Against these 
positions, the utmost efforts of infidelity have been directed. 
As the wonders of modern science have been unfolded, each 
new discovery, it was hoped by the enemies of Christianity, 
would convict the sacred writers of ignorance and error. 
As antiquarian research has brought to light new and un- 
expected facts from long-buried monuments of the past, 
each fresh accession has been eagerly pounced upon with 
the view of extracting from it some contradiction of the 
inspired records. And if at any time, some apparent dis- 
crepancy could, for a moment, be sustained, the cry of the 
enemies of the Bible then was, ' Falsus in uno, falsus in om- 
nibus,' — false in one respect, false in all. How can a book 
which is thus proved erroneous, claim our confidence? 
How can it be the word of the infallible God ? But it will 



TRIUMPHS OF THE BIBLE. 71 

here be shown that those paeans of triumph were prema- 
ture, and that there is no cause for apprehension in the 
Christian camp, — that the Bible is able to resist every 
assault, from whatever quarter it may come — that it is pre- 
pared for every scrutiny of philosophy or of history, and 
that every fresh discovery which has the remotest bearing 
upon its authority and veracity, but adds to the " cloud of 
witnesses " which attest that " the words of the Lord are 
pure words ; as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified 
seven times." 



PART II. 
TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 



PRELIMINARY. 

In undertaking to demonstrate the harmony existing 
between the statements of Revelation and the discoveries 
of Science, it seems proper that their difference in aim and 
object should first be distinctly recognized. It has been 
said by one of the oracles of human wisdom * that " the 
scope or purpose of the Spirit of God is not to express 
matters of nature in Scripture otherwise than in passage, 
for application to man's capacity, and to matters moral and 
•divine." Had this indisputable maxim been borne in mind, 
many of the unhappy controversies which have occurred 
between the votaries of Science and the friends of the 
Bible would have been avoided. For it enunciates a prin- 
ciple which is the true key to the relations of Scripture and 
Science. It was no part of the design of the sacred writers 
to communicate scientific truth. The mission with which 
they were charged was of a far higher character. It was 
to announce the claims and declare the will of God as the 
moral Governor of the universe, and to prepare a chart 
whereby man might be guided in reference to his eternal 
destiny. It was to unfold the mysteries, not of the king: 
dom of nature, but of grace. Hence, when they have occa- 

1 Lord Bacon. 
4 



74 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

sion to refer to " matters of nature in passage," they simply 
mention a fact as it appears, without any regard to scien- 
tific accuracy of expression. They never use the dialect of 
the schools, but speak of all the appearances and phenomena 
of nature in popular and optical language, "not as they 
would be seen by us were we placed in the sun ; but as 
they are represented by our human senses in our present 
relative position." 1 It is thus they tell us that " the sun 
stood still over against Gibeon, and the moon in the valley 
of Ajalon." For it was only such an expression that would 
be understood by those for whom it was intended. It is 
the common language which mankind have used in all ages, 
and will continue to use. And if the most profound as- 
tronomers of the present day had occasion to speak of such 
phenomena as the rising and the setting sun, they would 
doubtless ignore the true theory of the solar system. More- 
over, it should also be considered that for the inspired 
writers to have done otherwise, — to have taught the truths 
or corrected the errors of science, and thus have thrown 
light upon the paths of physical research, would have coun- 
teracted the divine plan for the disciplining and training of 
man, and the gradual and timely development of the activi- 
ties of his intellect. 

The divine wisdom is manifested, therefore, in ordering 
that the references in the Bible to the facts and phenomena 
of the natural world should be, as the nature of the case 
demanded, conventional, not scientific, expressed in the uni- 
versal language of appearances, and therefore capable of 
being understood by the unlettered, and in ages wholly 
ignorant of science. The absence of scientific accuracy by 
no means involves any real discrepancy or contradiction. 
There may be a seeming variance between the glowing 
allusions of the sacred writers to the beautiful phenomenon 
of the dew and the true theory of its formation, but it is 

1 Coleridge's Aids to Reflection. 



TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 75 

seeming only. While, however, there are passages of this 
sort, in which strictly philosophical language, until com- 
paratively recent times, would have made Scripture a 
stumbling block both to the learned and unlearned, there 
are also numerous others containing statements which ex- 
hibit a remarkable agreement with modern discovery. The 
laws and processes of nature are unfolded nowhere in its 
pages, so as to render human inquiry and toil unnecessary ; 
but by the light of modern science we are now enabled to 
perceive that in the pregnant expressions uttered ages ago 
by the inspired writers, truths lay concealed, the discovery 
of which by slow and laborious processes of investigation, 
has immortalized not a few of the world's master minds. 
The secrets which they have won from the domain of the 
material universe were already in the sacred word, "not 
indeed in all the minute particulars which the wants and 
wishes and growth of human society should age by age 
develop, but there in evidence to show that the hundred 
gates of Science, as applied to nature, were opened by a 
divine and gracious hand, that man might enter in, and 
walk its golden streets, or reap its wide-spread fields." 1 

It is proposed, therefore, in the three following chapters 
of the present work, to vindicate the Bible against the 
objections which have been drawn from the discoveries of 
Physical Science, not merely by showing that seeming con- 
tradictions may be explained by referring to the use of 
optical and conventional language, but that many of thosj 
discoveries have been anticipated in its statements, in a 
manner which unmistakably indicates the presence of an 
Omniscient Mind. As Astronomy and Geology have been 
supposed to be especially antagonistic to Revelation, the 
testimony of those sciences will be separately examined ; 
after which another chapter will be occupied with a setting 

1 Lecture on Religion and Science by Rev. H. M. Mason, D.D. 



76 TESTIMONY OP SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

forth of the contrast which the Bible exhibits, viewed in 
its scientific relations, to the religious books of the heathen 
and ancient systems of philosophy,— additional allusions to 
physical phenomena, — and its recognition of those great 
primary and leading principles which are the ultimate results 
of Science. 



CHAPTEE I. 

ASTRONOMY. 

The Heavens, which " declare the glory of God," have 
been invoked by the infidel to disparage the authority of 
His word, and the unenlightened zeal of not a few of its 
advocates for a time favored the idea that a real hostility 
did exist between that sublime science which seeks an in- 
telligent acquaintance with the hieroglyphics of the sky, 
and the sacred oracles. The progress of scientific discovery 
and the establishment of the true principles of interpreta- 
tion have, however, as will be shown, removed the apparent 
contradictions and demonstrated their entire harmony. 

A seeming collision between the Bible and Astronomical 
Science was found in the use of the word which in our 
translation is rendered " firmament." It is well known that 
according to the philosophy of the ancients, the heavens 
are a mighty and vaulted arch of transparent solid matter 
in which the fixed stars are firmly riveted, and which with 
them performs a daily revolution round the earth as a 
centre. The planets which move in an opposite direction 
were supposed to belong to a lower and nearer region. In 
accordance with this view, the Latin Yulgate renders the 
original Hebrew word " firmamentum," which is an exact 
synonym of the word " stereoma " used in the Greek Sep- 
tuagint, and both signify something firm and solid. Jose- 
phus also (Antiquities, Book I, c. i, § 1) evidently under- 
stood the Scriptures to teach that at the creation the earth 



78 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

was surrounded with a " crystalline firmament " or vault. 
"While the true system of the universe remained unknown, 
the language of the Bible on this point seemed to accord 
with what was then known of science. But when, in the 
light of advancing discovery, the figment of a crystalline 
vault above us vanishes like a dream of the night, a seem- 
ing contradiction is disclosed between the Word and the 
Works of God. How is it to be met ? The usual explanation 
has been that Moses here used the language of appearances, 
and that he accommodated the expression to the notions 
current in the time in which he lived. This has generally 
been acquiesced in as satisfactory. Recently, however, Mr. 
Goodwin, one of the contributors to the celebrated "Essays 
and Reviews," apparently supposing that the word admitted 
of no other interpretation, has taken pains to show that it 
is " irreconcilable with the discoveries of modern Astron- 
omy." This is an instance, however, of misdirected zeal, 
for upon turning to the Hebrew Bible, we find that the 
word originally used by the inspired writer, does not 
necessarily mean a solid mass, but should be translated 
" expanse." " And God said, Let there be an expanse in 
the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from 
the waters. And God made the expanse. . . . And 
God called the expanse heaven." We thus find that the 
sacred historian of the Creation has been misunderstood, 
and that the word he employs is the best possible that 
could have been selected to express both the appearance 
and the actual celestial arrangement. Instead of contra- 
dicting, the Bible has here anticipated science. 

A like result has attended the once famous controversy 
respecting the motion of the earth. Three centuries ago, 
another principle of the scientific creed of the ancients — that 
the earth was the immovable centre of the celestial mech- 
anism, and that all the heavenly bodies were created for its 
use — remained undisturbed. Under the influence of Aris- 



ASTKONOMY. *79 

totle, it had become an indisputable axiom in the human 
mind, and his dogma was supposed to be the doctrine of 
the Bible. When, therefore, the discoveries of Copernicus, 
Kepler, and Galileo overturned the error of the Stagirite, 
and demonstrated the motion of our planet round the sun, 
the innovation upon the established opinions of mankind 
was denounced as inconsistent with the Christian faith. 
The Bible was held to be committed to the Aristotelian 
dogma, by such passages as that in which David has sung 
that " God hath established the earth upon its foundations ; 
it shall not be moved forever and ever. The going forth 
of the sun is from end of the heaven, and his circuit unto 
the ends of it." Solomon also had said : " One generation 
passeth away, and another generation cometh ; but the 
earth abideth forever." The promulgation of the supposed 
heresy elicited the thunders of the Vatican, and " the illus- 
trious Galileo was sent to the dungeons of the Inquisition 
for thinking," as Milton says, "in Astronomy otherwise 
than the Franciscan and Dominican licensers thought." 
And among Protestants, divines of such ability, learning, 
and piety as Calvin and Turretin, held it to be antiscriptu- 
ral to disbelieve the immobility of the earth. Yet out of 
this supposed conflict with what is now universally re- 
garded as a true Astronomy, the Bible has come unscathed. 
It is now seen that there is no real collision. The solution 
is, that in this case as in others, the sacred writers avoided 
scientific phraseology and used the language of appearances. 
They were guided to speak intelligibly to learned and un- 
learned. 

But more than this can be claimed. In one of the 
very passages above cited, which was supposed to contain 
a contradiction to science, one of the greatest discov- 
eries of science is plainly recognized, or at least implied. 
In order to make this appear, it should be stated that the 
sacred writers elsewhere teach the globular form of the 



80 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

earth, and that it is suspended upon nothing, or on a bot- 
tomless space. When, therefore, the Psalmist says that 
God hath laid the foundations of the earth that it should 
not be removed forever, what is this but a recognition of 
the mighty law of gravitation, demonstrated by Newton, 
whereby the planets are held in their orbits ? 

" All intellectual eye, our solar round 
First gazing through, he by the blended power 
Of gravitation and projection saw 
The whole in silent harmony revolve." — Thomson. 

This view finds further corroboration in the sublime in- 
terrogatory addressed by the Deity to the patriarch in the 
38th chapter of the book of Job : " Who shut up the sea 
with doors when it rushed forth and came out of the womb ? 
When I made the cloud its garment, and the haraphel or 
thickest darkness its swathing band? When I brake upon 
it my decree, and put bars and doors, and said, Hitherto 
shalt thou come and no farther, and here shalt thou stop in 
the proud swelling of thy waves." What is this but the 
same universal law impressed by the Almighty upon matter 
at the Creation, by which the relation between land and sea «? 
is permanently established, and without which the waters 
would toss and overspread the earth, so as to render it un- 
inhabitable. This exquisite adjustment thus sublimely set 
forth in the world's oldest poem, it has been one of the 
greatest triumphs of modern science to demonstrate and 
establish. 

In the following interrogatory in the same chapter, we 
find another anticipation of one of the remarkable achieve- 
ments of modern discovery : " Hast thou commanded the 
morning and made the day-spring to know his place ? " 
The reference here is to two facts which modern science 
has ascertained, but which could have been known then 
only to an Omniscient Mind — the stability of the earth's 



ASTRONOMY. 81 

axis and the uniformity of the earth's rotation. The mean- 
ing of the question may be thus expressed : "Hast thou so 
constituted the earth that it should revolve on its axis, and 
made it to move with such wonderful precision ? " It is 
now known that the earth preserves a perfect uniformity in 
its rotation on its axis. And but for this it is evident that 
the morning would not know its place, nor would there be 
any regularity in the rising or setting of the stars, which 
depended on the above conditions. But with such unerr- 
ing exactness has this uniformity been preserved, that cal- 
culation has shown that for two thousand years it could 
not have varied the one hundredth part of a second of time. 
And God's covenant of the day and night is elsewhere 
brought forward in Scripture as the peculiar emblem of 
God's faithfulness to his promises. " If ye can break my 
covenant of the day and my covenant of the night, and that 
there should not be day and night in their season, then may 
also my covenant be broken with David my servant." 
Change is written on all the other phenomena of the uni- 
verse ; this is the only ordinance of fixed, immutable sta- 
bility. But certainly in the times of the patriarch Job, 
that fact could have been known only to God. 1 

When the Scriptures speak of the stars in the aggre- 
gate, the same supernatural knowledge is revealed. It 
compares their number to the sand. "As the hosts of 
Heaven cannot be numbered nor the sands of the sea 
measured." ■ (Jeremiah xxxiii, 22.) But this is a fact which 
has only been known since the discoveries of modern 
science have made us aware how vast the scale on which 
the universe is built. The ancient astronomer Hippar- 
chus fixed the number of stars at 1022, which was in- 
creased by the later observations of Ptolemy to 1026. It 
is now ascertained that in our latitude, during the clearest 
night, only 1160 stars are visible to the naked eye, while 
1 Prof. Mitchell's Lectures on Astronomy. 



82 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

an observer watching all night at the equator, may be able 
to number about three thousand. But the discoveries of 
the telescope, still recent, have enabled us to realize that 
the declaration of Holy Scripture uttered so many ages 
back, is more than a figure of speech. It is calculated that 
the mighty disc of Lord Rosse's instrument has augmented 
the magnitude of the stellar universe 125,000,000 times. 
" God," says Sir John Herschel, after a telescopic survey 
of the groups of stars and nebulas in the vast fields of space, 
" has scattered them like glittering dust on the black ground 
of the general heavens." 

" Depth, height, breadth, 

Are lost in their extremes, and where to count 
The thick sown glories in these fields of fire 
Perhaps a seraph's computation fails." 

From this wondrous disclosure of science, infidelity has 
drawn, however, what has been considered as one of the 
most formidable objections against Revelation, requiring, 
therefore, a somewhat extended examination. 

When from the improvements in the telescope and the 
discoveries of Galileo and his successors, the illimitable ex- 
tent and marvellous grandeur of the physical universe had 
dawned upon human conception, the sceptical objection 
was soon advanced that it was extravagant and incredible 
to suppose that amid the millions of globes which are scat- 
tered through the vast domains of space, one of the least 
considerable should be singled dut as a special scene of the 
Creator's care and kindness. Is it probable, the sceptic 
argued, that the infinite Ruler of such a multiplicity of 
worlds and systems, many of them far grander than our 
own, is it probable, that He would send his coequal Son to 
die for a single rebellious race, the entire loss of which 
would no more be missed, than the fall of a withered leaf 
impairs the honors of the forest or the removal of a single 
grain would diminish the sand of the sea shore ? " Is it 



ASTRONOMY. 83 

not as absurd to maintain this, as it would be to hold at the 
present day the old Ptolemaic hypothesis, according to 
which the earth is the centre of the vast mechanism of the 
universe, instead of the newer Copernican doctrine, which 
teaches that the earth revolves round the sun ? And is not 
the book in which so incredible an assumption is to be 
found, thereby necessarily disproved ? " 

To the answering of this objection, Dr. Chalmers ad- 
dressed himself in his celebrated discourses on " the Modern 
Astronomy." A brief abstract of his course of argument 
may serve to show how conclusively he demonstrated its 
fallacy. 

After a brilliant sketch of the wonders of the heavens, 
he enters upon his reply by showing that the objection is 
utterly alien to " the modesty of true science," that it in- 
deed violates the first rule of the now universally accepted 
inductive philosophy, since it must necessarily vest upon an 
unproved assertion. How does the infidel know that 
Christianity was designed for this world only ? If he can- 
not demonstrate this primary fact, all his reasoning falls to 
the ground. Who is authorized by the possession of super- 
human information, to tell us that in any of the bright 
worlds that stud the firmament above us, the name and 
religion of Jesus are unknown ? On the contrary, it is 
probable, that the moral influence of the wondrous plan 
of Redemption is felt and was designed to be felt, to the 
remotest bounds of Creation. "We are justified in believing 
that the Cross of Christ not merely secures a glorious sal- 
vation to perishing sinners of earth, but attracts the won- 
dering gaze of other worlds, and may, by the lessons which 
it teaches, be the means of confirming myriads of unfallen, 
sinless beings in their allegiance to God. In the divine 
moral government of the universe a problem had been pre- 
sented, to the solution of which the highest created intelli- 
gence was unequal. Man created perfect and in the image 



84 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

of God, had transgressed. How shall he be restored ? 
Infinite justice demanded the death of the offender. Yet 
the misery of his creature appealed to the mercy of God. 
How shall these jarring claims be reconciled ? *' A medium 
is required ; it is found. The Word, the Revealer and the 
Glorifier of the Father, is made flesh ; he lives on earth, he 
suffers, he dies ; but in dying, as his bleeding head falls on 
his quivering breast, the divine harp is struck ; and while 
the curtain is darkly descending on Nature and her dying 
Lord, the chords of justice and of mercy roll forth their 
blended notes that echo through every circling sphere, to 
the most distant regions of the peopled universe." Those 
glorious and happy intelligences, who, safe in their original 
purity, had beheld with transport the wonders of Creation 
and Providence, were now called to see the still greater 
wonders of Grace and salvation. The unfolding of such a 
mystery might well employ their eager and delighted con- 
templation. Were it possible for a planet by some convul- 
sion to be driven from its orbit, and then restored by 
Omnipotence to its allotted pathway in the heavens, such a 
phenomenon would be observed with the deepest interest 
and regarded by men of science as worthy of the most 
profound investigation. But as far as mind is superior to 
matter, such an event shrinks into insignificance when 
compared with the restoration of an alienated, rebel race 
of accountable beings, wandered far from holiness and God, 
to the one, harmonious, unchanging system of love and 
righteousness. 1 The poet only echoes the common voice 
of mankind when he says : 

"Behold this midnight splendor, worlds on worlds; 
Ten thousand add, and twice ten thousand more, 

1 The thought contained in the above illustration has been thus impres- 
sively presented by an eminent living preacher, the Rev. Newman Hall of 
London : " God is the grand centre of attraction, the only fountain of life and 
love to all holy souls. Toward Him they adoringly look— round Him they 



ASTRONOMY. 85 

Then weigh the whole : one soul outweighs them all, 
And call the seeming vast magnificence 
Of unintelligent creation poor." 

Moreover, we are expressly informed in the inspired 
word, that "the angels" do "desire to look into" the 
mysteries of Redemption, and that among the ends con- 
templated by the mighty plan of Grace, it was designed, 
" that now unto the principalities and pdwers in heavenly 
places might be known by the Church the manifold wisdom 
of God." 

If these considerations are thought insufficient to meet 
the difficulty, it is also to be remembered that "God's 
ways and thoughts are not ours," and we shall greatly err, 
if we suppose that our estimate of what is small or great, 

reverently revolve — in His radiance alone they shine. Obeying his laws 
they move in harmony with the great universe — they roll on without rub in 
the grand mechanism of the divine purposes ; and with voices more real and 
jubilant than the music of the spheres, they evermore, in rapturous hallelu- 
jahs, express their own gladness and their Creator's praise. But should any 
of these, in wilful disobedience, break loose from that spiritual gravitation, 
which, being voluntary, is capable of being resisted — should any soul turn 
away from the Central Sun to gaze on other objects in regions beyond its 
orbit — should the lust after forbidden objects, wilfully and wickedly encour- 
aged, engender an anomalous centrifugal force, causing it to break loose from 
that gravitation toward the Deity on which the order and happiness of the 
moral universe depend, — could such a soul expect to enjoy the same privileges 
and security as before? Rushing from the light, must it not now roam on in 
gloom — one degree of darkness ever leading to another more deep ? The 
golden chain of love which hitherto bound it to the Eternal Throne being 
broken, instead of circulating around that throne radiant in its glories, must 
it not now pursue its solitary, ignominious course ; and having forsaken the 
happy path of obedience, plunge wildly on in its own self-chosen career, 
destruction its final and inevitable doom? 

" If a planet under such circumstances could not be brought back ; yet, 
thanks be to God, a wandering sinner can. For the Sun of Righteousness 
comes after the wanderer to draw him once more into his true orbit — the at- 
tracting centre pursues the guilty fugitive as he rushes away from light and 
joy. Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. Yield to the attractions of 
His cross, and He will replace you in your true orbit."— Exeter Hall Lectures, 
1859. 



86 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

can be entertained by a Being who is infinite in all perfec- 
tions. To us, indeed, the cedars of Libanus may seem more 
striking and majestic than the little hyssop which spring- 
eth out of the wall ; and the Leviathan which " maketh the 
deep to boil like a pot," more than the conies which are a 
"feeble folk and make their dwelling among the rocks." 
But let us not imagine that He who made them all, is influ- 
enced in his care and attention to all, by the respective 
magnitude of each. The inconceivable extent of his do- 
minions does not necessarily lessen the interest which he 
feels in particular portions. He can at the same moment 
watch over the revolutions of worlds and the fall of a spar- 
row ; and it is in keeping with what we elsewhere see of 
the glory of God in the minute as well as in the vast, not 
only in the sublimities of Alps and Andes, but also in the 
lustre of an insect's wing, and in the curious aqueducts by 
which a leaf is nourished, — that He should thus lavish the 
treasures of his wisdom and his grace, to rescue from a ruin, 
otherwise irretrievable, even this humble province of his 
universal empire. As the largest telescope is insufficient 
to carry the power of human vision to the remotest bounds 
of creation, but leaves it where mighty systems dwindle to 
a faint nebulous speck of light, so have we reason to be- 
lieve that the most powerful microscope that ever has been 
or will be constructed, will be altogether unable to guide 
our views to the utmost limits in the descending scale of 
creation. If the one has brought into view worlds as nu- 
merous as the drops of water which make up the ocean ; 
the other has brought into view a world in almost every 
drop of water. 1 And in the mechanism of that little world 

1 " Professor Ehrenberg," says Mrs. Somerville, " has discovered a new- 
world of creatures in the infusoria, so minute that they are invisible to the 
naked eye. He found them in fog, rain, and snow, in the ocean and stagnant 
water, in animal and vegetable juices, in volcanic ashes and pumice, in opal, 
in the dusty air that sometimes falls upon the ocean ; and he detected 
eighteen species twenty feet below the surface of the ground in peat earth, 



ASTRONOMY. 87 

and its myriads of inhabitants, we behold the same display 
of wisdom and benevolence, the same elaborate skill and 
contrivance, which are shown in the construction of the 
elephant or the whale, or in those mighty globes that float 
around us in the sky. If the telescope has more fully un- 
folded to us the meaning of the inspired declaration, " He 
telleth the number of the stars and calleth them all by their 
names ;" the microscope enables to perceive a deeper sense 
in the answering utterance, "Even the very hairs of your 
head are all numbered." And the combined lesson of both 
is that " we are in the midst of being, whose amount, per- 
haps, we cannot estimate, but which is yet all so exqui- 
sitely related, that the perfection of its parts has no depend- 
ence upon their magnitude ; of being within whose august 
bosom the little ant has its home, secure as the path of the 
most splendid star ; and whose mightiest intervals — if Infi- 
nite Power has built up its framework — Infinite Mercy 
and Infinite Love glowingly fill, and give all things warmth, 
and lustre, and life — the sense of the presence of God, to 
whom an atom is a world, and a world an atom." There 
would certainly be force in the objection we are considering, 
if man were to rest his claim to such an astonishing display 
of mercy and love as the scheme of Redemption unfolds, 
upon any excellency of his own or upon the importance of 
the position which he holds in the scale of creation. But 
his claim, if so it can be called, is of a far different kind and 
derived from a different principle, and becomes so much 
the stronger as science extends its empire. His title is 

which was full of microscopic live animals; they exist in ice, and are not 
killed by boiling water. Tbis lowest order of animal life is much more abun- 
dant than any other, and new species are found every day. Magnified, some 
of them seem to consist of a transparent vesicle, and some have a tail ; they 
move with great alacrity, and show intelligence by avoiding obstacles in their 
course ; others have silicious shells. Language, and even imagination, fails 
in the attempt to describe the inconceivable myriads of these invisible inhab- 
itants of the ocean, the air, and the earth."— Physical Geography. 



88 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

derived from his own necessity on the one hand, and on the 
other from the infinite love and compassion of Him who 
came from Heaven to save. If that love could be measured 
by a human standard, if the goings forth of its tenderness 
and mercy could be elicited only by the high qualities of 
the being in whose behalf it is exercised, it might be in 
harmony with man's conceptions and- estimates, but it would 
not be the mercy of God. It would not be that mercy of 
which man knoweth not the height nor depth, nor length 
nor breadth, a mercy which left the angels to perish while 
it redeemed man, and which is so touchingly illustrated by 
our Lord's parables concerning the " lost piece of silver," 
and the " one lost sheep," to seek and to save which, the 
shepherd left " the ninety and nine which went not astray." 
The lower the place assigned man in the scale of the 
Creator's works, and the more Science expands that crea- 
tion in widening circles around him, the more his redemp- 
tion becomes in harmony with the Creator's attributes, and 
the deeper and more profound the meaning we can recog- 
nize in the language with which the Psalmist expresses his 
astonishment at the Divine Condescension : " When I con- 
sider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and 
the stars which Thou hast ordained ; what is man that 
Thou art mindful of him ? and the son of man that Thou 
visitest him ?" " As i$ His majesty, so is His mercy." 

The infidel objection from the vastness of the material 
universe has been thus conclusively met and answered by 
considerations drawn from science itself. Yet another ar- 
gument, perhaps, not less convincing, may be deduced from 
the analogies of the word of God. The stupendous humilia- 
tion of the Incarnation is in entire harmony with all the 
other facts which marked the early life of Immanuel. It 
was wholly destitute of human pomp and grandeur. "No 
unearthly palace was let down from the skies to be his 
dwelling place. No monarch was driven from his throne 



ASTRONOMY. 89 

for him to occupy it. A stable was his first habitation and 
his first couch was spread among the beasts of the stall. The 
far greater portion of his life was spent in obscurity, and 
all in poverty. A few poor fishermen were his attendants ; 
his only crown, a crown of thorns ; a reed given him in 
derision was his sceptre ; a cross of ignominy was his 
throne. If then the mystery of godliness is great, it is so 
throughout. From the manger to the cross and the grave, 
it is one harmonious whole. But from all these scenes of 
wondrous humiliation a divine glory streams, conveying to 
the mind of every earnest seeker after truth irresistible 
conviction that in that lowly suffering form, God taber- 
nacled with men. Let it be then that our earth is but a 
little world — that, like its own Bethlehem Ephratah, it 
shrinks from comparison with thousands of its sister spheres 
— that " it does not swell so largely to the eye, or shine so 
brightly to the night," yet since it has been ennobled by 
the events of Gethsemane and Calvary, not the less may 
we feel assured that as an object of interest it eclipses them 
all. Since it received the visit of the Son of God, in the 
eye of the universe, the entire globe is a Holy Land. 

But not only have the discoveries of Astronomy been 
urged as inconsistent with the revealed plan of Redemption, 
modern infidelity has sought to find in the same sublime 
science proofs and arguments wherewith to assail the Bible 
doctrine of creation. The great Lord Bacon " would rather 
believe all the fables in the Legend, and Talmud and Al- 
coran, than that this universal frame is without a mind ; " 
but philosophers of the present age have sought to demon- 
strate and establish an hypothesis, whereby the system of 
the universe with all its varied phenomena might be ex- 
plained and accounted for by the operation of physical laws 
to the exclusion of divine, creative agency. " By the aid 
of the so-called * Nebular Theory,' unnumbered assaults 
h&ve been made upon the Old Testament ; and we were 



90 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

assured, a quarter of a century ago, that it would soon be 
exploded altogether. Feeling himself impregnable while 
standing upon that theory for his basis, 'the inductive 
Philosopher' very confidently asserted 'that there never 
had been such a thing as creation^ in the generally received 
sense of the term ; ' and transferred us from the dominion 
of Jehovah to that of some unintelligent and inexorable 
\ law,' or of some Oriental boodha, who, having called the 
principles of nature into existence, and set them a-going, 
retired into quiescence forever." x 

As the doctrine of an all-wise and almighty God, the 
Creator of all things visible and invisible, is the fundamen- 
tal truth of all religion, natural and revealed, it will be per- 
tinent to the design of the present work to examine this 
theory, and also to bring forward some of the evidences of 
creative design which Astronomy presents. 

The idea that nebulas or loose masses of fiery vapor, 
which seemed to be floating in the depths of remote space, 
might form the materials out of which were gradually 
elaborated suns and planets, was an original conception of 
the illustrious discoverer, Sir William Herschel, though 
without any thought by him of the use to which it could 
be applied. It was caught at and adopted by the great 
French Astronomer Laplace, and having been by his labors 
brought into definite and tangible form, as a theory it is 
associated with his name. It supposes that loose masses of 
nebulous vapor, at first without definite form or movement, 
gradually assumed by virtue of gravitation, a regular sphe- 
roidal and rotating form, lightest at the circumference and 
gradally increasing in density toward the centre, at which 
point the greatest density is attained. This was the nucleus 
from which suns were gradually evolved, around which by 
the combined processes of rotation and further condensation, 
successive and concentric rings were formed on the outer 
1 Christian Observer. 



ASTRONOMY. 91 

limits of the nebulous disks, of which, it is supposed, we 
have a faiut illustration in the rings of Saturn. These 
rings, according to the theory, subsequently became broken 
up and detached, when the matter composing them natural- 
ly agglomerated into spheres, which by an analogous pro- 
cess of condensation and evolution of rings, produced 
planets and their satellites. 

Such is the celebrated Nebular Hypothesis, which has 
enjoyed a great popularity, and, for a time, threw the Mo- 
saic Cosmogony into the shade. Infidel philosophy seemed 
to have achieved the triumph of showing how the universe 
could be formed without a God. Physical law was alleged 
to have unfolded that wondrous magnificence and beauty 
which we behold in the Heavens and in the earth, instead 
of Him who liveth forever. 

With the advancement of discovery, however, this bril- 
liant theory has been losing ground. The searching ken 
of Sir John Herschel's powerful telescope at the Cape of 
Good Hope, disclosed the fact that some of the nebulae were 
resolvable. Faint patches of light as seen through feebler 
instruments, now assumed a grandeur beyond the dreams 
of science. The giant telescopic eye framed by Lord Rosse 
has made discoveries even more remarkable. The nebulous 
light in the northern region of the milky way was at once 
resolved into " distinct stars and star dust," and the white 
fleecy cloud of Orion which had hitherto baffled all attempts 
to disclose its texture, was shown to be " a gorgeous bed 
of stars." And many other dim, faint, misty spots put off 
their nebulous features, and assumed the glories of sidereal 
bodies. Thus has the idea been gradually matured in the 
scientific mind, that all those hieroglyphics in the sky be- 
token inconceivably distant and "countless myriads of firma- 
mental star-clusters, which are themselves, severally, what 
the cluster is that is seen by the naked eye to spangle the 
surrounding heavens at night; that there are families of 



92 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

firmaments, as there are groups and associated clusters of 
stars or suns." This magnificent conception cannot be 
numbered among the fixed results of science, and is not, 
therefore, to be urged as a direct argument in disproof of 
the Nebular Hypothesis. But from what has already been 
discovered, it is now conceded, that could another instru- 
ment of considerably greater power than that of Lord 
Rosse, be constructed, that ingenious theory already so 
much damaged, might be completely destroyed. "As 
advanced by Laplace," says Professor Whewell, " it was a 
mere conjecture. It is a mere conjecture still. Hitherto 
it has lost ground in the progress of Astronomical research- 
es." And says Dr. Lardner, "Such an hypothesis" (as 
that of diffuse luminous matter) " is not needed to explain 
appearances which are so much more obviously and simply 
explicable by the admission of a gradation of distances." 

But even if, for argument's sake, we grant the hypothe- 
sis to be correct, that out of a " diffused luminosity " were 
gradually evolved suns and planets, it does not prove, or 
even necessarily suppose that anything has been done with- 
out the intervention of intelligence and design. Its only 
effect is to transfer our view of, the skill exercised and the 
means employed to another part of the work. It is related 
of Epicurus that when, as a boy, he was reading with his 
preceptor the verses of Hesiod, which tell us that — 

" Eldest of beings, Chaos first arose, 
Thence earth-wide stretched the steadfast seat of all 
The immortals™" 

the young scholar first betrayed his inquisitive genius by 
putting the inquiry, " And Chaos whence ? " And thus is 
it in the case before us. The attempt to erect a physical 
system which shall explain how the beauty and grandeur 
of the universe were gradually produced, only places the 
necessity of divine interposition and creative agency farther 



&.STK0N0MY. 93 

back. Unless that be granted, innumerable questions and 
difficulties will still arise, for which an answer will be sought 
in vain. " Why," it may be asked, " must the primeval 
condition be one of change at all ? Why should not the 
nebulous matter be equally diffused through space, and 
continue forever in its state of equable diffusion, as it must 
do, from the absence of all cause to determine the time and 
manner of its separation ? Why should this nebulous mat- 
ter groAV cooler and cooler ? Why should it not retain 
forever the same degree of heat, whatever heat be ? If 
heat be a fluid — if to cool be to part with this fluid, as 
many philosophers suppose — what becomes of the fluid heat 
of the nebulous matter, as the matter cools down ? Into 
what unoccupied region does it find its way ? " These and 
numerous similar questions can only be met by admitting 
that the nebulous mass diffused throughout space, supposing 
such to have existed, came not there without the fiat of the 
Almighty ; and suns and planets were not formed out of 
that mass without the intervention of infinite wisdom. 
" Let it be supposed," says Professor Whewell, " that the 
point to which the hypothesis leads us is the ultimate point 
of physical science ; that the farthest glimpse we can obtain 
of the material universe by our natural faculties, shows it 
to us as occupied by a boundless abyss of luminous matter; 
still we ask how space came to be thus occupied, how mat- 
ter came to be thus luminous ? If we establish by physi- 
cal proofs, that the first fact which can be traced in the 
history of the world is that c there was light ; ' we shall 
still be led even by natural reason, to suppose that before 
this could occur, 'God said, Let there be light.' " 

But whatever method the Divine Architect may have 
chosen whereby to frame and build up this magnificent 
universe, and make it a temple to his praise, the wonderful 
provision He has made for its stability and permanence, 
which it has been one of the most brilliant triumphs of 



94r TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

modern science to unfold and demonstrate, bears so unmis- 
takably the impress of his infinite wisdom, that none but 
those who are incapable of reasoning from effect to cause, 
or by some anomaly in the laws of intellect, are insensible 
to the clearest evidence, can resist the conviction, that here 
is the finger of God ! ! 

Since the laws which govern the movements of the 
heavenly bodies have been understood, certain irregulari- 
ties and disturbances have been perceived in the planetary 
orbits, arising from the mutual attraction of the different 
planets upon each other, which suggest the arrival of an 
epoch in the course of revolving ages, when the effects of 
these irregularities, now minute, shall have accumulated 
sufficiently to derange the whole order of nature and reduce 
our system, now harmonious, to chaos and confusion. 
Actual observation, moreover, of the state of the Heavens 
at different periods, has established the fact, that in conse- 

1 The validity of the argument that the evidence of design demonstrates 
the existence of God, has, indeed, been called in question by the recklessness 
of modern scepticism. It is, says the infidel, the "petitio principii of dialec- 
tics," and he denies that there is any such evidence. To this it may be re- 
plied that the greatest intellects whom the world has known have acquiesced 
in it as an axiom or self-evident proposition, which requires no demonstra- 
tion. The noble passage which Baron Humboldt has quoted in his Cosmos 
from Aristotle (a passage from a lost work, preserved by Cicero), expresses, 
in a heathen form, the inextinguishable conviction of every intelligent mind, 
in which "the light" has not become " darkness." It runs thus : "If there 
were beings who lived in the depths of the earth, in dwellings adorned with 
statues and paintings, and everything which is possessed in rich abundance 
by those whom men esteem fortunate; and if these beings could receive tid- 
ings of the might and majesty of the gods, and could then emerge from their 
hidden dwellings through the open fissures of the earth to the places which 
we inhabit ; if they could suddenly behold the earth, and the sea and the 
vault of heaven ; could recognize the expanse of the cloudy firmament, and 
the might of the winds of heaven, and admire the sun in its majesty, beauty, 
and radiant effulgence ; and lastly, when night veiled the earth in darkness, 
they could behold the starry heavens, the changing moon, and the stars ris- 
ing and setting in the unvarying course ordained from eternity, they would 
surely exclaim, There are gods, and such great things must be the work of 
their hands.' " — Cosmos, Amer. ed., vol. ii, p. 29. 



ASTRONOMY. 95 

quence of these perturbations great changes in the relative 
position of the heavenly bodies have taken place, rendering 
the conclusion irresistible, that we are apparently gradually 
approaching such a catastrophe. 

It becomes, therefore, a question of deep interest, 
whether, in the mechanism of the universe, this contingency 
has been provided for and any adjustment prepared where- 
by to avert its consequences. This is a problem which 
could not be solved when the difficulty was first perceived. 
Its decision required such progress in the invention and im- 
provement of mathematical methods, as occupied the best 
mathematicians of Europe the greater part of the last 
century. Even Sir Isaac Newton could devise no other 
solution than the special interference of the Almighty to 
arrest the ruin of his work. The combined researches of 
Lagrange, Laplace and others have, however, by means of 
a refined analysis, demonstrated the wondrous fact that the 
solar system itself contains an element of self-conservation — 
that this contingency has been provided for^ and that at 
the very moment when these perturbations shall have 
reached their maximum, and the crash of worlds appear 
inevitable, a series of compensations will commence which 
will precisely bring back the system to the state in which 
it existed before. Like the oscillations of a pendulum, 
" each orbit undergoes deviations on this side, and on that 
of its average state *, but these deviations are never very 
great, and it finally recovers from them, so that the average 
is preserved. The planets produce perpetual perturbations 
in each other's motions, but these perturbations are not in- 
finitely progressive, they are periodical ; they reach a maxi- 
mum and then diminish. The periods which this restora- 
tion requires are for the most part enormous ; not less than 
thousands, and in some instances millions of years ; and 
hence it is that some of these apparent derangements have 
been going on in the same direction since the beginning of 



96 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

the history of the world. But the restoration is in the sequel 
as complete as the derangement ; and in the mean time the 
disturbance never attains a sufficient amount seriously to 
alter the adaptations of the system." 

" Thus," says Professor Mitchell, " do we find that God 
has built the heavens in wisdom, to declare his glory, and 
to show forth his handy-work. There are no iron tracks 
with bars and bolts, to hold the planets in their orbits. 
Freely in space they move, ever changing but never 
changed ; poised and balancing, swaying and swayed, dis- 
turbing and disturbed, onward they fly, fulfilling with 
unerring certainty their mighty cycles. The entire system 
forms one grand, complicated piece of celestial machinery ; 
circle within circle, wheel within wheel, cycle within cycle ; 
revolutions so swift, as to be completed in a few hours ; 
movements so slow, that their mighty periods are only to 
be counted by millions of years. Are we to believe that 
the Divine Architect constructed this admirably adjusted 
system to wear out, and to fall into ruin, even before one 
single revolution of its complex scheme of wheels have been 
performed ? ~No ! I see the mighty orbits of the planets 
rocking to and fro, their figure expanding and contracting, 
their axes revolving in their vast periods ; but stability is 
there. Every change shall wear away, and after sweeping 
through the grand cycle of cycles, the whole system shall 
return to the primitive condition of perfection and beauty." 

And can this exquisitely contrived plan of compensation 
and adjustment be the effect of chance, or produced by a 
process of natural laws working in them and by them? 
Surely, the contemplation of so amazing a contrivance must 
compel us to declare with Newton, that " this beautiful 
system could have its origin no other way than by the 
purpose and command of an intelligent and powerful Being, 
who governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as 
the Lord of the universe ; who is not only God, but Lord 



ASTRONOMY. 97 

and Governor ; " or, in the still more expressive language of 
the inspired Hebrew historian : " In the beginning God 
created the heavens and the earth." 

There is another admirable arrangement, equally sugges- 
tive of divine wisdom, whether we adopt or reject the 
hypothesis of Laplace. In the annual motion of the earth 
round the sun, its axis is inclined from the perpendicular 
to its orbit at an angle of twenty-three degrees, and re- 
mains constantly parallel to this direction. By this arrange- 
ment the changes of temperature on the earth's surface, 
and of the seasons are produced. Had the axis of the earth, 
instead of being so inclined, been perpendicular to the plane 
of its orbit, as is the case in Jupiter, the sun would always 
have been vertical to the same line of places, the equatorial 
regions would have been parched by the heat, while the 
regions, called temperate in the present arrangement, would 
have been consigned to utter desolation. By the existing 
dis])osition, the various parts of the earth are brought more 
fully under the solar influence, and we have all the delight- 
ful and beneficent effects which flow from the variety of 
climates. 

" Again, the earth is nearer the sun at one season than 
at another, and without some counteracting influence there 
would be an inconvenient increase both of the cold of 
winter and the heat of summer in the southern hemisphere, 
and the climate of the two hemispheres would be rendered 
altogether unlike each other. But any injury which might 
arise from this cause is made to disappear, chiefly by means 
of the circumstance that the point of the earth's orbit which 
is nearest the sun is that over which it moves with the 
greatest speed. It is ascertained that the quantity of heat 
which is conveyed by the sun to the earth, is the same 
during the passage from the vernal to the autumnal equi- 
nox, as in returning from the latter to the former. The 
much longer time which the sun takes in the first part of 
5 



98 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

his course is exactly compensated by its proportionably 
greater distance, and the quantities of heat which is con- 
veyed to the earth are the same, whether in the one hem- 
isphere or the other, north or south." 1 

Surely, the denial of divine wisdom in such exquisite 
adjustment, can only be accounted for by wilful blindness. 
That mind must be closed to conviction which does not 
respond to the declaration of the apostle, that " the invisi- 
ble things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly 
seen, being understood by the things which are made, even 
his eternal power and Godhead." 

But with all the evidences of design that are manifested 
in the construction of the material system, and the provis- 
ion which Infinite Wisdom has made for its stability, there 
are not wanting indications that it is still of a temporary 
nature, and that a period is destined to arrive in the cycles 
of the universe, when it shall come to an end. 

Among the agencies which may be considered as point- 
ing to such a result, is the resisting medium whose exist- 
ence throughout the boundless space traversed by the 
heavenly bodies, is now generally recognized among as- 
tronomers as the cause of the long observed acceleration 
in the motions of the comet of Encke. The excessive 
tenuity of such bodies fitting them to be readily affected 
by its action, evidently, can afford us no clue as to the 
period which must elapse, ere its effects could derange the 
mechanism of the solar system. Still, granting the exist- 
ence of a resisting medium, it necessarily follows that there 
must be such a period. " It may be millions of millions of 
years," says Professor Whewell, " before the earth's retar- 
dation may perceptibly affect the apparent motion of the 
sun ; but still the day will come (if the same Providence 
which formed the system, should permit it to continue so 
long), when this cause will entirely change the length of 
1 McCosh on Typical Forms and Special Ends in Creation. 



ASTRONOMY. 99 

the year, and the course of our seasons, and finally stop the 
earth's motion round the sun altogether. The smallness 
of the resistance, however small we choose to suppose it, 
does not allow us to escape the certainty. There is a 
resisting medium-; and, therefore, the movements of the 
solar system cannot go on forever. The moment such a 
fluid is known to exist, the eternity of the movements of 
the planets becomes as impossible as a perpetual motion on 
the earth." 

Not in the least, however, does this oppose or weaken 
the evidence of a Supreme, Creative Intelligence exhibited 
by the arrangements of the universe. For does it not 
furnish an unanswerable proof that the present order of 
things which must have an end, must also have had a be- 
ginning ? " There must have been a period in which the 
impulse now proceeding originated. A period of com- 
mencement implies a cause ; the order and regularity of 
the system imply an Intelligent Cause ; and thus the idea 
of Creator is forced upon us ; and instead of an eternal 
operation of mechanical powers, and an eternal succession 
of organized existences, which is the dream of the atheist, 
we see a system, glorious with the impress of a Divine hand, 
and rejoicing in the smile of a present Deity." 

For the permanence of that system during the period 
which Almighty Wisdom intended it should occupy, as we 
have seen, an exquisite arrangement has been made. So 
long as the heavenly bodies continue to revolve, this pro- 
vision will rectify the irregularities of their orbits and 
counteract the tendencies to derangement ; nor will this 
result be affected by the action of the resisting medium, 
the action of which does not tend to increase or diminish 
the eccentricities of the celestial motions. Still its ultimate 
effect must be to arrest those motions and bring this mighty 
universe to an end. And in addition to this cause, " the 
constant radiation of heat from the sun into space, and the 



100 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

absorption of vital power by the mutual action of the moon 
and the tide wave, together with the fragments of broken 
planets, the descent of meteoric stones upon our globe, the 
wheeling comets welding their loose materials at the solar 
surface, the volcanic eruptions of our 'own satellite, the 
appearance of new stars and the disappearance of others," 
all seem to foreshadow the approaching termination of our 
present system. 

And is not this catastrophe in harmony with what ap- 
pears to be creation's universal law ? Absolute permanence 
is written nowhere on the face of nature. The oak of the 
forest wears for centuries its leafy honors and then decays ; 
the stupendous mountains crumble and wear away ; " where 
the long street roars, hath been " (so Geology teaches us), 
" the stillness of the central sea ; " and it now appears that 
the law of change reaches even to the firmament, and the 
unwearied circuits of the planets have an end. 

" What does not fade ? The tower that long had stood 
The crush of thunder, and the warring winds, 
Shook by the slow but sure destroyer Time, 
Now hangs in doubtful ruins o'er its base ; 
And flinty pyramids and walls of brass 
Descend ; the Babylonian spires are sunk ; 
Achaia, Rome, and Egypt moulder down. 
Time shakes the stable tyranny of thrones ; 
And tottering empires rush by their own weight. 
This huge rotundity we tread grows old, 
And all those worlds that roll around the sun. 
The sun himself shall die, and ancient night 
Again involve the desolate abyss." — Akenside. 

"But after all," says Professor Nichol, "why should 
such an anticipation be painful ? The fact of change merely 
intimates that, in the exhaustless womb of the Future, un- 
evolved wonders are in store. The phenomena referred to 
would simply point to the close of one mighty cycle in the 
history of the solar orb— the passing away of arrangements 



ASTRONOMY. 101 

which have fulfilled their objects, that they might be 
changed into new. Thus is the periodic death of a planet, 
perhaps, the essential of its prolonged life ; and when the 
individual dies and disappears, fresh and vigorous forms 
spring from the elements which composed it. Mark the 
chrysalis ! It is the grave of the worm, but the cradle of 
the sun-born insect. The broken bowl will yet be healed 
and beautified by the potter, and a voice of joyful note will 
awaken one day even the silence of the urn." 

" N"ay, what though all should pass ? What, though the 
close of this epoch in the history of the solar orb should be 
accompanied, as some by a strange fondness have imagin- 
ed, by the dissolution and disappearing of all these shining 
spheres ? Then would our universe not have failed in its 
functions, but only have been gathered up and rolled away, 
these functions being complete. That gorgeous material 
framework, wherewith the Eternal hath adorned and varied 
the abysses of space, is only an instrument by which the 
myriads of spirits borne upon its orbs may be told of their 
origin, and educated for more exalted being ; and the time 
may come when the veil can be drawn aside — when spirit 
shall converse directly with spirit, and the creature gaze 
without hindrance on the effulgent face of the Creator." 

The final catastrophe of the present system of things 
(using a limited acceptation of that phrase) to which Science 
points, is in perfect harmony with the teachings of the 
Bible, while the anticipations of what is to follow, so glow- 
ingly expressed in the brilliant words of Professor Xichol, 
are but the echo of the far sublimer descriptions of the 
future inheritance prepared for the righteous, to be found 
in the inspired Word. Long ago had the royal bard of 
Judah sung : " The Heavens are the work of thy hands. 
They shall perish, but Thou shalt endure ; yea, all of them 
shall wax old like a garment, as a vesture shalt Thou 
change them and they shall be changed." And long ago 



102 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

from the rocky shores of Patmos, the beloved apostle had 
seen, in prophetic vision, the new heavens and the new 
earth which are to succeed the dissolution and passing 
away of the heavens and the earth that now are. By that 
awful and tremendous catastrophe, though it is to be ac- 
complished by the agency of fire, whose materials, as 
Science tells us, are laid up in the composition of the 
atmosphere, of the waters, and of the earth itself, we are 
not authorized to suppose that the glorious works of God 
shall literally be destroyed. But, as the records of the 
rocks reveal that our planet has already undergone mighty 
transformations, so shall it be at the predicted period of 
"the restitution of all things." And when the fires of 
purification shall have swept over its surface, and the me- 
morials of man's art and man's iniquity have alike been 
destroyed in the avenging flame, the earth shall emerge 
from the conflagration, not consumed, but emancipated 
from the thraldom of the curse, and, as we cannot doubt, 
arrayed in a garb of loveliness, far more glorious than it 
wore, even in that hour when God first pronounced His 
work to be " good," and " the morning stars sang together 
and all the sons of God shouted for joy." This is a result 
which the statements of Holy Scripture lead us to antici- 
pate, and which the discoveries of Science, as to past 
changes of the earth, confirm. It does not follow, how- 
ever, from this, that the renovated earth is to be the exclu- 
sive seat or boundary of the future heaven of the righteous; 
though it is far from improbable, that, associated as it is 
and ever must be, with such imperishable recollections, it 
may be one among the " many mansions," which they shall 
be permitted from time to time to visit and occupy. 
Neither the Bible nor Science indicates to us the locality 
of the special home of the sanctified family of God, the 
" place " which the Redeemer went " to prepare ; " but 
through the discoveries of the marvellous grandeur of the 



ASTRONOMY. 103 

universe opened up by Modern Astronomy, faith may be 
assisted to descry, what now the material eye cannot see, 
the spires and turrets of that celestial city, in which " there 
shall be no night, and they need no candle nor light of the 
sun." They can give us no positive information whatever, 
yet the views of the inexhaustible resources of the Creator 
which those discoveries suggest, are in harmony with the 
scattered intimations of Scripture on this deeply interesting 
subject. These are necessarily indefinite, yet their careful 
consideration will, perhaps, lead us to adopt the conclusion, 
thus eloquently expressed by Bishop Pearson : " This first 
aerial heaven, where God setteth up his pavilion, where 
4 he niaketh the clouds his chariot, and walketh upon the 
wings of the wind,' is not so far inferior in place as it is 
in glory to the next, the seat of the sun and moon, the two 
great lights, and stars innumerable, far greater than the 
one of them. And yet that second heaven is not so far 
above the first as beneath the third into which St. Paul was 
caught. The brightness of the sun doth not so far surpass 
the blackness of a wandering cloud, as the glory of that 
heaven 1 of presence surmounts the fading beauty of the 
starry firmament. For in this great temple of the world, 
in which the Son of God is the High Priest, the heaven 
which we see is but the veil, and that which is above, the 
holy of holies. This veil indeed is rich and glorious, but 
one day to be rent, and then to admit us into a far greater 
glory, even to the mercy seat and cherubim. For this third 
heaven is the proper habitation of the blessed angels, who 
constantly attend upon the throne." 

One of the grandest achievements of modern science has 
been the discovery of the new planet Neptune, in October, 
1846 — a discovery not by accident, but to which the ob- 
servers were led by scientific theory and deduction alone. 
Some time previous to the verification of Leverner's anal- 
ysis, Sir John Herschel predicted with undoubting confi- 



104 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

dence the great astronomical triumph in the following 
beautiful language addressed to the meeting of the British 
Association : " Among the remarkable events of the last 
twelvemonth, it has added a new planet to our list. 1 It 
has done more — it has given us the probable prospect of 
the discovery of another. We see it, as Columbus saw 
America from the shores of Spain. Its movements have 
been felt, trembling along the far reaching line of our anal- 
ysis, with a certainty hardly inferior to ocular demonstra- 
tion." This anticipation has been realized, and by the aid 
of the telescope, the eye of the astronomer has actually 
descried a new and mighty planet of our system, so remote 
in the depths of space as to include within its orbit the 
farthest range of the comet of Halley, which requires 
seventy-five years for its period of revolution. The faith 
which is " the evidence of things unseen," can, however, 
far surpass this wondrous achievement and realize to the 
spiritual vision a world far more remote and inconceivably 
more glorious. True, our knowledge of its existence is 
derived from different sources than was the- persuasion of 
the Genoese mariner, who saw in the floating trees and 
plants borne by the gulf stream of the tropics to the shores 
of Europe, tangible evidence of the western continent. Nor 
can we hope to verify our belief by our material vision, 
even though aided by " the philosophic tube, that brings 
the planets home into the eye of observation." Yet with 
an assurance more firmly grounded than that of the great 
navigator, or the astronomer, we may know and believe, 
that beyond the azure canopy above us, there is " a better 
— an heavenly country." It is remarkable, that the prog- 
ress of astronomical discovery seems now to be tending 
toward the recognition of a grand centre of the universe, 
around which suns and planets, stars and constellations, in 
one mighty system, harmoniously revolve. Should this 
1 Astrea, discovered by Mr. Drencke of Dreisen, Dec. 8, 1845. 



ASTRONOMY. 105 

sublime theory, which, indeed, already appears to rest upon 
a scientific basis far above mere conjecture, 1 be certainly 
demonstrated, perhaps, it were not absurd to imagine, that 
there in its great and awful reality might be the Throne of 
God, and that there might be the spot where abides the 
ascended Redeemer in his glorified humanity, the centre 
of unity at once to the physical and moral creation. And 
although the most costly and gigantic telescope of science 
cannot avail to give us the faintest glimpse of " that land 
very far off, where dwelleth the King in his beauty ; " 
where stands his throne of glory, more radiant than the 
sun, and his shining palace brighter than the light ; and 
where his shining peers and princely subjects are ever to 
live with him and behold his glory ; yet even here there 
are " delectable mountains," known to Christian experience, 
as favored pilgrims have assured us, whence the far off city 
of God with its gates of pearl and its streets of gold may 
almost be descried through the mists of earth, and " sweet 
echoes of unearthly melodies " dimly fall upon the ear. As 
he approached the confines of the eternal world, the dying 
Payson said : " The eternal city is full in my view. Its 
glories beam upon me, its breezes fan me, its odors are 
wafted to me, its*sounds strike upon my ears, and its spirit 
is breathed into my heart." A view so strong and clear as 

1 " The two great laws of gravitation and inertia, by which our own sys- 
tem is regulated and maintained, have been proved to exist with precisely 
the same powers, at least in some of the fixed stars. The probability, there- 
fore, is, that all these are universal qualities inherent in all material objects. 
Tiiis being granted, seems to imply the necessity of a balanced rotatory mo- 
tion in every system of worlds, for preserving the general equilibrium of the 
whole ; because the universal attraction must prevent any body from remain- 
ing stationary. Now, the same principle appears to apply to groups of sys- 
tems which applies to systems themselves. Hence we may infer a complica- 
tion of movements of the most wonderful and extensive kind, combining not 
merely worlds with worlds, and systems with systems, but nebulae with 
nebula?, embracing the whole material creation and extending to infinity." — 
Eclectic Magazine. 

5* 



106 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

this, few can hope to attain from these mortal shores. Yet 
the glass of Scripture is open to all, and from the " glorious 
things " it reveals to our faith of the " city of God," every 
believer may form and cherish an ideal of the future home 
awaiting him at the close of his pilgrimage, to which the 
Pagan dreams of Elysian fields, Hesperian gardens, and 
Islands of the Blest, are as tapers to the sun. 

"About the holy city rolls a flood 

Of molten chrystal, like a sea of glass, 
On which weak stream, a strong foundation stood ; 
Of living diamonds the building was, 
That all things else, besides itself, did pass ; 

Her streets, instead of stones, the stars did pave, 
And little pearls, for dust, it seem'd to have, 
On which soft-streaming manna, like pure snow, did wave. 

" In midst of this city celestial, 

Where the Eternal Temple should have rose, 
Lightened the Idea Beatifical — 

End and beginning of each thing that grows ; 

Whose self no end nor yet beginning knows, 

That hath no eyes to see, nor ears to hear, 

Yet sees and hears, and is all eye, all ear ; 

That nowhere is contained, and yet is every where. 

"A heavenly feast, no hunger can consume ; 
A light unseen, yet shines in every place ; 
A sound no time can steal ; a sweet perfume 
No winds can scatter ; an entire embrace 
That no satiety can e'er unlace : 
Ingraced into so high a favor, there 
The saints, with their beau peers, whole worlds outwear, 
And things unseen do see, and things unheard do hear. • 

" No sorrow now hangs clouding on their brow, 
No bloodless malady empales their face, 
No age drops on their hairs his silver snow, 
No poverty themselves and theirs disgrace, 
No fear of death the joy of life devours, 
No loss, no grief, no change wait on their winged hours." 

Rev. Giles Fletcher. 



CHAPTEE II. 

GEOLOGY. 

Fkom that sublime science which traverses the fields of 
immensity and presents to our contemplation the glories of 
the firmament, and which claims an antiquity coeval with 
the infancy of society, we will now turn to another hardly 
less attractive, but of comparatively recent origin, which 
calls our attention to evidences of Creative power, wisdom, 
and goodness, hidden in the deep recesses of the earth. 
"In the magnitude and sublimity of the objects of which 
it treats, Geology," says Sir John Herschel, " undoubtedly 
ranks, in the scale of the sciences, next to Astronomy." 
" If the discoveries of Astronomy are vast, the discoveries 
of Geology are no less vast : they extend through time, as 
those of Astronomy do through space. They carry us 
through millions of years, that is, of the earth's revolutions, 
as those of Astronomy do through millions of the earth's 
diameters, or of diameters of the earth's orbit. Geology 
fills the regions of duration with events, as Astronomy fills 
the regions of the universe with objects." 1 Let us interro- 
gate its discoveries respecting their harmony with revela- 
tion. 

Until near the commencement of the present century, it 
was, perhaps, the generally received opinion, sanctioned, it 
was supposed, by Holy Scripture, that the earth, if not the 
whole universe, dated from an epoch of about six thousand 

1 Plurality of Worlds. 



108 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

years ago, and that previous to that period, the matter of 
which it is composed, was not in existence, much less was 
it the home of animal or vegetable life. It was supposed 
also, that previous to the fall of man, decay and death 
were unknown in the creation, and that the beasts of the 
field were partakers of our immortality. But modern 
science has contradicted these suppositions ; and innumer- 
able wrecks of a former state of nature, wonderfully pre- 
served ("like ancient medals and inscriptions in the ruins 
of an empire ") have been brought from the deepest caverns 
of the earth and the bottoms of the mountains, "from 
scarped cliff and quarried stone," to prove the immeasur- 
able antiquity of our globe, and that death was a law among 
its animal tribes, ages before man had made his appearance 
upon its surface. 

From a careful study of some fossil organic remains 
found in the gypsum quarries near Paris, the celebrated 
French naturalist Cuvier was the first to establish an order 
of facts pointing to the above conclusion. Since his time, 
the various strata of the earth and their embedded con- 
tents, which had been for centuries the occasion of won- 
der and perplexity, have been laboriously investigated by 
the ablest scientific minds, and with great and surprising 
results. And, contrary to a too prevalent notion respect- 
ing the science of geology, those results cannot be impugned 
on the ground that the principles of the science are unset- 
tled and constantly changing. If there were cause for the 
imputation, while it was yet in a state of immaturity, the 
case is different now. Geology is still a youthful science, 
but is no longer immature. Its principles are as clearly 
ascertained and " as well settled as the theory of the earth's 
diurnal and annual motions in astronomy, or the doctrine 
of definite proportions in chemistry." 

" The most important of these principles are the follow- 
ing : The whole accessible crust of the globe has undergone 



GEOLOGY. 109 

entire, and oftentimes repeated metamorphoses, since the 
rocks were created ; enormous erosions have taken place 
upon the earth since it was consolidated ; existing continents, 
by slow vertical movements, have been below the ocean 
several times ; processes are now going on around us, capa- 
ble of producing nearly all the known varieties of rock, with 
the aid of water and heat ; water and heat have been the 
grand agents of all geological changes ; the whole globe has 
once been in a state of igneous fusion; there was a time 
when no animals or plants existed on the earth ; several dis- 
tinct economies of life, or groups of animals and plants, have 
occupied the surface, each adapted to the altered condition 
of things ; these ancient races have been unlike one another, 
and, with a few exceptions in the highest formations, unlike 
those alive, the resemblance between the living and the fos- 
sil types becoming more unlike as we descend ; some ten or 
twelve miles in thickness of fossiliferous rocks were deposit- 
ed previous to the creation of man, who was among the last 
of the animals that have appeared upon the globe ; and 
finally, amid all the diversities of organic structure, and 
change of species, genera, and families, in different forma- 
tions, the feature of one grand system can be seen running 
through the whole series, linking all past minor systems to- 
gether, and to the existing races, and showing the one grand 
plan of creation, as it lay originally in the Divine Mind." x 

The most important geological fact in the above enumer- 
ation in its" bearings upon Revelation, is the existence of 
organic remains embedded in the rocks. These are sub- 
divided into several strata, and each of the strata is a vast 
catacomb in which lie buried innumerable generations of 
creatures that have lived and died during the period of its 
deposition. " The quantity of fossil remains is so great," says 
Mrs. Somerville, " that probably not a particle of matter 
exists on the surface of the earth, that has not at some time 
1 Bibliotheca Sacra. 



110 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

formed part of a living creature. Since the commencement 
of animated existence, zoophytes have built coral reefs ex- 
tending hundreds of miles, and mountains of limestone are 
full of their remains all over the globe. Mines of shells are 
worked to make lime ; ranges of hill and rock, many hun- 
dred feet thick, are almost entirely composed of them, and 
they abound in every mountain chain throughout the earth. 
The prodigious quantity of microscopic shells discovered 
by Ehrenberg, is still more astonishing ; shells not larger 
than a grain of sand form entire mountains ; a great por- 
tion of the hills of Casciano, in Tuscany, consists of cham- 
bered shells, so minute, that Saldani collected 10,454 of 
them from one ounce of stone. Chalk is often almost 
entirely composed of shells ; the polishing portion of tripoli 
is owing to their silicious coats ; and there are even hills 
of great extent consisting oi this substance, the debris of 
an infinite variety of microscopic insects." 1 For such vast 
accumulations, the geologist claims It as unquestionable 
that incalculable periods of time must have been required, 
compared with which the antiquity of man upon the earth 
dwindles to an insignificant point. 

The inductive process which has led to the conclusions 
of Geology is thus forcibly stated by Hugh Miller : " All 
nature is a vast tablet, inscribed with signs, each of which 
has its own significancy ; and Geology is simply the key by 
which myriads of these signs, hitherto undecypherable, can 
be unlocked and perused. We are told by travellers, that 
the rocks of the wilderness of Sinai are lettered over with 
strange characters inscribed during the forty years' wander- 
ings of Israel. They testify in their very existence, of a 
remote past, when the cloud-o'ershadowed tabernacle rose 
amid the tents of the desert.; and who shall dare say 
whether, to the scholar who could dive into their hidden 
meanings, they might not be found charged with the very 
1 Physical Geography. 



GEOLOGY. Ill 

song sung of old by Moses and by Miriam, when the sea 
rolled over the pride of Egypt ? To the geologist every rock 
bears its inscription engraved in ancient hieroglyphic char- 
acters, that tell of the Creator's journeyings of old, of the 
laws which He gave, the tabernacles which He reared, and 
ithe marvels which He wrought, — of the mute prophecies 
wrapped up in type and symbols, — of the earth gulfs that 
opened and of reptiles that flew, — of fiery plagues that de- 
vastated on the land, and of hosts more numerous than that 
of Pharoah, that ' sunk like lead in the mighty waters.' " 

It must be granted that there is an apparent discrepancy 
between the teachings of Geology and the statements of 
the Bible, and it is not surprising that apprehension was 
excited in religious minds when they were first advanced. 
Cowper no doubt expressed the general sentiment of serious 
Christians of his day, when he wrote : 

" Some drill and bore 
The solid earth, and from the strata there 
Extract a> register, by which we learn, 
That He who made it, and revealed its date 
To Moses, was mistaken in its age." 

Inspired by the supposed necessity of vindicating the truth 
of Scripture, numerous attempts have been made to over- 
throw the interpretations which Geology has given to the 
records found in the stone book of nature. The favorite 
counter-explanation has been the effect produced by the 
deluge of Noah. That mighty catastrophe, anti-geologists 
have maintained, is sufficient to account for all the deposits 
of fossil remains in the rocks, without resorting to such 
incalculable periods of time as necessary to their produc- 
tion. This hypothesis, however, is readily overthrown by 
the application of scientific tests and the ordinary laws of 
nature. Unless that awful event is to be viewed as in every 
respect removed from the sphere of natural law, it is evi- 



112 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

dent that whatever marks of physical action, if any, it may 
have left upon our globe, must have been confined to its 
surface, or at farthest to its upper strata. No ordinary 
laws of natural agency will identify its effects with those 
organic remains which are buried more than a thousand 
feet deep in the hardest rocks, and which in many instances 
are covered by overlying strata of a flinty hardness, which 
no passing flood of waters could possibly penetrate, and 
particularly a flood of such short duration as that of Noah. 
Evidently its effects must have been mechanical, not chem- 
ical, but in a very small degree. It might disturb the rela- 
tive position of rocks or denude their surface, but it could 
not make them. It might deposit a bank of sand or gravel, 
but we can not conceive of its power being sufficient to dis- 
solve or disturb or affect to any considerable degree, a bed 
of rock thousands of miles in geographical extent, and 
thousands of yards in thickness. Moreover, if in the face 
of these objections, we still refer the fossil remains of or- 
ganic life in the various primary and secondary rocks to 
such a cause, how can we account for their orderly and 
regular distribution ? They are not found in any part of 
the earth in that confused and disorderly mass to which 
they would be reduced by such a violent mechanical agita- 
tion. They are almost as scientifically arranged, according 
to their genera and species, throughout the different forma- 
tions, as they would be in the museum of a naturalist — the 
most ancient and the extinct species in the lower, the re- 
cent and existing species in the upper strata of the earth. 
Such an arrangement, it is evident, can not be attributed to 
a disturbing agency. " Rushing waters were not the scene 
for calm deposits, where all the bones and spines of the 
most delicate structures, and the forms of leaves and plants 
in endless variety, could be laid and kept unhurt. A del- 
uge, and that, too, of only one hundred and fifty days' 
duration, was not the workshop in which strata ten miles 



GEOLOGY. 113 

thick could be formed and packed with their teeming pop- 
ulation ; neither had it time to do the work, nor had it room 
to hold the materials." ' Yet to this, as well as other ab- 
surd conclusions, we are driven, if we maintain that all the 
mighty changes which the records of the rocks reveal, took 
place in the short period which the Noachian deluge lasted. 
Another class of Writers have sought to remove the 
difficulty, by arguing that since it is possible for God to do 
all things, it was possible for Him by a single fiat to create 
all those skeleton structures that have been supposed to 
indicate creatures of 

"Monstrous shapes that one time walk'd the earth, 
Of which ours is the wreck." 

According to this theory, the myriads of sea shells, the 
impressions and fossil specimens of plants, and skeletons of 
the higher animals, which we find in their progressive order 
of super-position in the rocks, were but accompaniments 
of the creative act, mere illusions and shadows, " deceptive 
simulacra," which never had any answering realities in the 
vegetable or animal world ! All the wonders of intelli- 
gence which great scientific minds have recognized in the 
stratified rocks of the earth, are thus held to reveal (says 
the eminent Professor Owen) " an elaborate design to de- 
ceive and not to instruct." The only argument which is 
used to support this attempt to " untie the Geological 
knot," must indeed be conceded. The Divine Power is 
certainly competent to such a creation. But infinite wis- 
dom being an attribute of the Deity as truly as his omnip- 
otence, how can we conceive of such a creation as forming 
a part of his glorious plan ? "Where can be found the . 
intelligible purpose in the production of forms which, in 
such a case, would have been to human conceptions so 
evidently useless f It is equally undeniable that God could 

1 Archdeacon Pratt's " Scripture and Science." 



114 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE^ BIBLE, 

have created Herculaneum and Pompeii under their vol- 
canic beds of lava and ashes, and the Egyptian mummies 
in their tombs and sarcophagi, just as we now find them ; 
but reason at once turns from the supposition as to the last 
degree improbable. And the same reason compels us to 
place a theory of equal if not greater improbability, resorted 
to in order to defend the authority of the Bible against the 
supposed hostility of Geological discoveries, on a par with 
the folly of the Bramin, who dashed the microscope in 
pieces when it crossed his superstitious practices by the 
wonders it revealed. 

Such absurd resorts to explain undeniable phenomena 
have proved as unnecessary as the alarm occasioned in the 
Vatican by the discoveries of Galileo. They have only 
served to wound religion in the house of its friends. Here 
again, the discrepancy is only apparent, and the true and 
consistent exposition of the inspired record of Moses has 
established its perfect harmony with the disclosures of geolo- 
gy. The difficulty in effecting their reconcilement has 
been not with Scripture itself, but with misconceptions of 
its meaning. "It should be recollected," says Dr. Buck- 
land in his Bridgewater Treatise, " that the question is not 
respecting the Mosaic narrative, but of our interpretation 
of it ; and still further, it should be borne in mind that the 
object of this account was, not to state in what manner, 
but by whom, the world was made. As the prevailing ten- 
dency of men in those early days was to worship the most 
glorious objects of nature, namely, the sun, moon and 
stars, it should seem to have been one important point in 
the Mosaic account of creation to guard the Israelites 
against the polytheism and idolatry of the nations around 
them, by announcing that all these magnificent celestial 
bodies were no gods, but the works of the Almighty 
Creator, to whom alone the worship of mankind is due." 
Had he done this in the language of science, it is obvious 



GEOLOGY. 115 

that he must have used that language in its farthest devel- 
opment, which would have rendered his sublime disclosures 
a hopeless enigma to all but a comparative few of our race. 
It not being his object to teach science, he has entirely 
avoided its terms and phraseology, yet has he so written as 
to stand the test of science. His simple yet lofty and ma- 
jestic narrative is so worded as to be intelligible to all 
generations of men from the beginning to the end of time, 
and yet the utmost scrutiny of modern discovery can find 
in it nothing to impugn. 

But as in the instances already given under the head of 
Astronomy, much more than this can be justly claimed for 
the Mosaic record of Creation. Not only is it free from 
scientific error, not only does the most searching investiga- 
tion fail to discover any discrepancy or contradiction be- 
tween its statements and the discoveries of Geology ; there 
are also to be found remarkable coincidences between the 
language of that narrative and those discoveries. By ac- 
curately following the very words of Moses, without wrest- 
ing them in the least degree beyond their plain and obvious 
import, we obtain, as it respects the order of creation, an 
exact parallelism with the language which geologists, many 
of them sceptics, indifferent to Moses and hostile to Reve- 
lation, have laboriously decyphered from the rocks and 
strata of the earth. They have found the fossil remains of 
animal and vegetable life deposited beneath the surface of 
the globe in the very succession in which the lawgiver of 
Israel declared them to have been created. It has been 
said, that if one should try to give a sketch in the very 
fewest words of the Celestial Mechanism of Laplace, the 
Cosmos of Humboldt, and the geology of the latest and 
best authorities, he would do so in the very language of 
Moses. A brief comparison of his statements with the 
" testimony of the rocks " will show that this statement is 
not unfounded. 



116 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

Thus from Scripture we learn, that "in the beginning 
God created the heavens and the earth, and that the earth 
was without form and void (invisible and unfurnished), and 
datkness was upon the face of the deep." From Geology 
we know, that there was a period in the ceaseless flow of 
time, when the earth, which is now clothed with verdure 
and throbs with animated nature, was a watery waste, de- 
void of physical life, and enveloped with muddy vapors and 
dense clouds of mist and fog which effectually shut out the 
rays of the sun from its surface. 

From Scripture we learn, that while darkness was yet 
upon the face of the deep, the creative Spirit of God brood- 
ed upon the waters, and life preceded light. By Geology 
we are taught that the Spirit of the Creator terminated the 
lifeless state of our planet in the next succeeding period of 
time, by pouring submarine life into the expanse of the 
primaeval ocean, and the earliest created specimens of ani- 
mal life, anemones, zoophytes and coral aniuialculge, from 
the combination of whose tiny labors the vast beds of lime- 
stone have proceeded which are found in every part of the 
world, first made their appearance, but all of them had this 
peculiarity that they were devoid of organs adapted to the 
perception of light; thus leading to the conclusion, that 
according to the Mosaic narrative, light did not dawn upon 
the globe when life first stirred in the waters. 

From Scripture w T e learn, that on the second day the 
Atmosphere was formed, and that a canopy of clouds was 
suspended above the firmament, veiling the heavenly host 
of sun, moon and stars, from the face of the globe ; that 
afterwards, on the third day, dry land and vegetation ap- 
peared ; and finally, on the fourth day, the canopy of clouds 
being dissolved, the heavenly bodies were for the first time 
discerned, to be from thenceforth c for signs and for seasons, 
and for days and for years.' From Geology we know that 
at the close of the Silurian submarine creation vast moun- 



.GEOLOGY. 117 

tains were upheaved by volcanic forces from the deep, and 
land vegetation made its first appearance, attesting the 
previous existence of an atmosphere ; and from the same 
source disclosing to us the mineral contents of the great 
coal measures, we know that the nature, quantity and 
quality of the vegetation which then sprang up, were such 
as demonstrate the growth to have taken place under cir- 
cumstances of long continued shade, which must at last have 
been dispelled by the dispersion of the superincumbent 
clouds, and the admission of the direct rays of the sun to 
the earth's surface. The plants of the great carboniferous 
epoch are such as never have been touched by a sun beam. 
They are such precisely as would have grown in a humid 
atmosphere ; their wood is not hardened, as that of plants 
on which the pure sun-light falls. Thus, both the Mosaic 
and Geological records concur in testifying that the order 
of creation was — a clouded atmosphere, a dry land and its 
vegetation, succeeded by the direct and unimpeded radiance 
of the sun, moon and stars. 

From Scripture we learn, that the next display of 
creative power was an abundance of great sea monsters, 
terrestrial reptiles and winged creatures ; and Geology ex- 
poses to our view in the next succeeding strata, the organic 
remains of the then existing tyrants of the ocean, the land 
and the air ; and we behold profuse swarms of the gigantic 
Saurians which peopled the earth in " the age of Reptiles. 
Elaniosauria, tyrants of the deep ; Dinosauria, tenants of 
the land ; and Ptero-dactyles and feathered birds, the flying 
of wing through the firmament above the earth. 

" From Scripture we learn, that the next step was the 
creation of cattle and creeping things, and beasts of the 
earth (the Mammalia). From Geology we know, that the 
race of quadruped Mammals did not come into existence 
until after the age of Reptiles ; that the Saurian monsters, 
with the other oviparous reptiles and birds, had been ten- 



118 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

ants of our globe for ages before we find any traces of a 
quadruped Mammal. 

" Lastly, from Scripture we learn, that the closing and 
completing work of the Creation was Man ; and Geology 
trumphantly confirms the revealed fact, that submarine 
animals, land vegetation, Reptiles, Birds and quadruped 
Mammals, were all of them in existence successively and 
collectively, ages before the first of the human race. It is 
only in the latest diluvial deposits of the tertiary period 
and which are the newest on the earth's crust, that the 
remains of man are to be found." ' Yet had the human 
race existed in the primaeval ages of our planet, unquestion- 
ably their remains would have been found intermingled 
with the countless fossils of extinct plants and animals 
which the rocks have preserved. Our bones, composed of 
the same elements as those of the animal races, are equally 
capable of being kept from destruction. 

But in the absence of these or any traces of man in any 
save the most superficial deposits, we are compelled to ac- 
knowledge that Science confirms what Revelation had 
previously declared — that the palace was prepared ere the 
king appeared ; that the empire was put in order ere the 
sovereign was appointed. "For him volcanic fires had 
fused and crystallized the granite, and piled it up into lofty 
table lands. For him the never wearied water had worn 
and washed it down into extensive vallies and plains of 
vegetable soil. For him the earth had often vibrated with 
electrical shocks, and had become interlaced with rich 
metallic veins. Ages of quiet had succeeded each revolu- 
tion of nature, during which the long accumulating vegeta-. 
bles of preceding periods were, for him, transmuted into 
stores of fuel — some of the deposits of primaeval waters were 
becoming iron — and successive races of destroyed animals 

1 This comparison of the two records, Mosaic and Geological, is mostly 
derived from McCausland's " Sermons in Stones." 



GEOLOGY. 119 

were changed into masses of useful material." Thus through 
all these varied operations, ordered and arranged by Crea- 
tive power, wisdom and benevolence, the earth was gradu- 
ally framed and furnished, as a habitation for man. When 
the foundations of the house had been fixed, and its walls 
reared, and its star-spangled canopy overhung, and its floor 
carpeted with soft green, and fuel and water laid up in 
store -houses, then, and not till then, did man appear, 

" the master work, the end 



Of all yet done, a creature who not prone 
And brute as other creatures, but endued 
With sanctity of reason, might erect 
His stature, and upright with front serene 
Govern the rest, self-knowing ; and from thence 
Magnanimous to correspond with heaven, 
But grateful to acknowledge whence his good 
Descends, thither with heart, and voice, and eyes 
Directed in devotion, to adore 
And worship God supreme, who made him chief 
Of all his works," — Milton. 

Thus the Record of Moses and Nature's Record bear 
each other witness in every particular. The same narra- 
tive told by the ruler of Israel four thousand years ago, is 
also told in its own expressive and intelligible language by 
the very earth on which we tread, as it were " graven with 
an iron pen and lead in the rock forever." " To a sincere 
and unsophisticated mind, it must be evident," says Profes- 
sor Guyot, " that the grand outlines sketched by Moses are 
the same as those which modern science enables us to trace; 
however imperfect and unsettled the details furnished by sci- 
entific inquiries may appear on many points. Whatever 
changes we may expect to be introduced by new discover- 
ies, in our present view of the universe and the globe, the 
prominent traits of this vast picture will remain. And 
these only are traced out in this admirable account of Gen- 



120 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

esis. These outlines were sufficient for the moral purposes 
of the book ; the scientific details are for jis patiently to in- 
vestigate. They were no doubt unknown to Moses, as the 
details of the life and of the work of the Saviour were un- 
known to the great prophets who announced his coming, 
and traced out with master hand his character and objects 
centuries before his appearance on earth. But the same 
Divine hand which lifted up before the eyes of Daniel and 
of Isaiah the veil which covered the tableau of the time to 
come, unveiled before the eyes of the author of Genesis the 
earliest ages of the creation. And Moses was the prophet 
of the past, as Daniel and Isaiah and many others were the 
prophets of the future." 

As it regards the supposed difficulty of death's being in 
the world previous to the sin of Adam, it should be con- 
sidered that the Bible is nowhere committed to the state- 
ment that the death of the animal creation is a consequence 
of the Fall of man. The assertion of the apostle that "by 
one man sin entered into the world and death by sin," does 
not necessarily mean that the sin of Adam brought death 
upon the irrational tribes as well as upon the human race. 
While the facts which the Book of Nature reveals were un- 
known, such a conclusion from the Apostle's words was not, 
perhaps, .unreasonable ; yet long before the discoveries of 
Geology, Jeremy Taylor considered man to have been 
created mortal. -'They are injurious to Christ," he writes, 
" who think that from Adam we might have inherited im- 
mortality. Christ was the giver and preacher of it ; he 
brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel." 
By the aid of science we now learn that the Apostle's true 
meaning is, not that Death had never appeared in the irra- 
tional world before the fall of man, but that in that fearful 
event sin had degraded God's intellectual creature to the 
level of the brutes in his animal nature, and in his spiritual 
to that of a lost fallen being. If the fact of death's being 



GEOLOGY. 121 

already in the world seem to us inconsistent with its being 
the happy abode of innocence, the difficulty will be re- 
moved when we reflect that Infinite Wisdom foresaw what 
man would become, and therefore may have adapted the 
world to his permanent rather than his temporary condi- 
tion. It is certain that carnivorous instincts were implant- 
ed in the animal tribes from the very first, and perpetual 
destruction has been followed by continual renovation. 
The wise benevolence of this divine arrangement is thus 
conclusively vindicated by Dr. Buckland : " The law of uni- 
versal mortality being the established condition on which it 
has pleased the Creator to give being to every creature 
upon earth, it is a dispensation of kindness to make the 
end of life to each individual as easy as possible. The most 
easy death is, proverbially, that which is least expected ; 
and though, for moral reasons peculiar to our own species, 
we deprecate the sudden termination of our mortal life, 
yet, in the case of every inferior animal, such a termination 
of existence is obviously the most desirable- The pains of 
sickness and decrepitude of age, are the usual precursors of 
death, resulting from gradual decay; these, in the human 
race alone, are susceptible of alleviation from internal 
sources of hope and consolation, and give exercise to some 
of the highest charities and most tender sympathies of hu- 
manity. But, throughout the whole creation of inferior 
animals, no such sympathies exist ; there is no affection or 
regard for the feeble and the aged ; no alleviating care to 
relieve the sick ; and the extension of life through linger- 
ing stages of decay and of old age, would to each individual 
be a scene of protracted misery. Under such a system, the 
natural world would present a mass of daily suffering bear- 
ing a large proportion to the total amount of animal en- 
joyment. By the existing dispensations of sudden destruc- 
tion and rapid succession, the feeble and disabled are 
speedily relieved from suffering, and the world is at all 
6 



122 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

times crowded with myriads of sentient and happy beings ; 
and though to many individuals their allotted share of 
life be often short, it is usually a period of uninterrupted 
gratification ; whilst the momentary pain of sudden and 
unexpected death is an evil infinitely small, in comparison 
with the enjoyments of which it is the termination." 

The Biblical objection which has been supposed to con- 
flict with this divine arrangement, is thus conclusively met 
by Professor Hitchcock : " Physiology teaches us that death 
is a general law of organic natures, from which law, as we 
infer from Revelation, man was exempt so long as he obey- 
ed the law of God. As a special favor he was to remain 
unaffected by the decay and dissolution to which other 
beings were subjected. The penalty of disobedience was, 
that he would forfeit this enviable distinction, and be sub- 
jected to a death more revolting than the brutes. The 
reward of obedience was a continued immunity from evil, 
and a final translation, without suffering, to a more exalted 
condition. A presumptive argument in favor of this view 
is, that if Adam had not seen death in the animal tribes, it 
is diificult to perceive, how he could have any idea of the 
nature of the threatening. And we may be sure that God 
never promulgates a penalty without affording his subjects 
a means of comprehending it." * 

But there still remains the difficulty of reconciling the 
vast antiquity of the globe which the various geological 
phenomena have unanswerably demonstrated, with the 
chronology of the Mosaic record, which has been supposed 
to teach that the earth is nearly coeval with the appearance 
of man. There are two schemes by which this objection is 
met and obviated, each of which has had the advocacy of 
learned and able writers, and which are equally admissible, 
without resorting to any forced construction, by the lan- 
guage of Scripture. 

The first supposes that the opening verse of the first 
1 Hitchcock's Religion of Geology, p. 92. 



GEOLOGY. 123 

chapter of Genesis refers to the original fiat which called 
the material universe into existence, — after which an unde- 
fined and enormous interval of time took place ; and that 
the globe was then cast into the chaotic state of emptiness 
and waste described in the second verse as preceding the 
six days, each of twenty-four hours' duration, in which it 
was fitted and arranged as a habitation for man. 

It is claimed for this hypothesis,- that there is nothing in 
it which is not entirely consistent with the discoveries of 
geology. " Here, (say its advocates,) we find a beginning, 
old enough for all that geology can require. These open- 
ing sentences, separated off from the rest of Genesis, imply 
no date whatever; they do not "fix the antiquity of the 
globe." Between them and the subsequent narrative, 
there is ample duration for the discoveries of Geology to 
intervene. All the pre-Adamite formations may be allowed 
to follow this first opening statement. The earth may have 
been brought into shape, replenished with living creatures, 
and again reduced into chaos, as often as the needs of sci- 
ence demand. Periods of whatever duration it requires, 
may have elapsed in those successive creations, before that 
at which the inspired historian takes up the narrative to re- 
late how, at a time when the earth was again " without 
form and void," the Spirit of God again moved upon the 
face of the waters, to inaugurate the creation of which man 
is the distinguishing feature. And here, it is claimed, we 
have all the facts concerning the origin of man and the hab- 
itation in which he is placed, which the wisdom of God saw 
it fitting to communicate, or which it was needful for man 
to know. It was a matter of deep and vital interest to man 
to know how he came upon this earth and who was the 
Author of his being. It did not concern him to know the 
number of the plauets, or the nature of the laws of the solar 
system, and upon these points Scripture is silent. Nor was 
it needful for him to know how many revolutions this our 



124 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

globe had gone through before he himself was created, or 
.what strange beings had walked its surface, before the last 
great convulsion ; and accordingly no allusion was made to 
his long past history. And surely this silence as to other 
worlds and other states of this world, matters which had 
no bearing on man's own interests, ought to be ranked as 
one among many internal evidences of the Mosaic narra- 
tive. An impostor would have sought to minister to the 
cravings of the human intellect for " things hidden and 
marvellous" and spoken upon many points concerning 
which the oracles of God are dumb ; but the inspired writer 
gives us only the simple record of the progressive work 
of creation. Saying nothing of the intermediate condi- 
tion in which the earth may have lain and the changes 
it may have undergone, during a long series of ages, he 
takes up its history where Geology leaves it, after the great 
convulsion which closed the Tertiary period, and shows us 
how in six days Almighty wisdom and benevolence fitted 
the globe as a residence for man. Thus, without encroach- 
ing in the least degree upon the literalities of the Mosaic 
narrative, we may yet allow the widest scope to the geolo- 
gist, and at the same time believe that the globe was in ex- 
istence for immeasurable ages before man appeared, that it 
underwent a long series of revolutions, was tenanted by 
animals and clothed with vegetation, until at length a stop 
was put to these changes by the ushering in the birth-day 
of a higher and more glorious creation. 

It must be allowed that these are forcible and weighty 
considerations, and the theory which they are brought to 
support, was for a long time thought to meet all the re- 
quirements of Geology. It has numbered among its advo- 
cates by far the greater number of those who have sought 
to harmonize the language of Scripture with the discoveries 
of science, and is still, probably, that which is most gene- 
rally received. But it is now contended by eminent geolo- 



GEOLOGY. 125 

gists, many of whom are the earnest friends of Revelation, 
that this scheme of reconciliation is no longer adequate. It 
requires, in order to maintain its ground, that there should 
be a "break" or chaotic period, at the end of the Tertiary- 
period and just previous to the creation of man. But it is 
asserted that all the facts of Geology go to show that there 
was no such universal catastrophe at that epoch, but that all 
the different tribes and species of animals and plants have 
been gradually introduced, and that one unbroken chain of 
organic existence connects the modern world with those 
pre-Adamite worlds that have passed away. If these alleged 
facts have an established scientific basis, 1 the theory in ques- 
tion must be relinquished, unless it is maintained . that vast 
numbers of the animal and vegetable races now existing 
were exterminated just previous to the appearance of man, 
and then recreated ; but in such a procedure, it is forcibly 
urged that we can not recognize the signature of infinite 
wisdom. It becomes, therefore, of the highest importance 
to ascertain if there be not another hypothesis, which will 
at once harmonize with the statements of Revelation and 
meet the requirements of Geology. Such a one has been 
brought forward by the late Hugh Miller, and sustained by 
him with great power of argument and illustration in his 
" Testimony of the Rocks," though it was held by some 
previous to his day, and even dates back to the age of St. 
Augustine, being found in his celebrated treatise on "the 
City of God." The support of Origen is also claimed for 
it, and that of the venerable Bede. This scheme of recon- 
ciliation agrees with the former in prefixing the opening 
sentence of Genesis to the geologic periods ; but instead of 

1 It should here be stated, that some of the present advocates of the first 
hypothesis maintain that the required "catastrophe" has been found. In 
his " Science and Scripture," Archdeacon Pratt cites the authority of the 
"Podrome de Palaeontologie " of M. d'Orbigny, for the statement, that 
" between the termination of the Tertiary period and the commencement of 
the Human or Recent period, there is a complete break." 



126 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

imagining those periods to be omitted from the subsequent 
narrative, it supposes them to be successively indicated in 
the work of the several days recorded by Moses. Accord- 
ing to its interpretation of the sacred text, those days were 
periods of great and indefinite extent, instead of being 
natural days of twenty-four hours each. By this theory, 
sufficient time is afforded for any duration which the neces- 
sities of Geology require, while it has the advantage of 
presenting to us the works of creation in precisely the same 
order in which, as we have seen, they are disclosed to us 
by the succession of strata and the development of organic 
life. The only obstacle to its admission seems to be the 
generally limited acceptation of the word " day " and the 
difficulty of deviating so far from its ordinary meaning. 
But for this interpretation, it is able to quote the authority 
of Scripture itself, which in texts innumerable, uses the 
word " day " to indicate some appointed period of indefinite 
length appropriate to a particular purpose ; hence " the day 
of salvation," "the day of Jerusalem," "the day of Christ," 
" the day of visitation," and many others. This use of the 
word is indeed so well established, that we find St. Peter 
guarding his disciples against the unbelief of their times by 
the consideration that "one day is with the Lord as a 
thousand years, and a thousand years as one day ;" a prov- 
erb so directly connected with the received Jewish belief 
concerning the first chapter of Genesis, that we are told the 
Rabbis regarded each of the six days there mentioned to 
be (at least) emblematic of a thousand years. Nor can it 
be said that the word is limited to the duration of a solar 
day by the words "morning and evening," with which it 
has been supposed to be synonymous. For there could be 
no apparent rising and setting of the sun, so as to afford a 
periodic measure of time, before his beams were made to 
penetrate the clouds and vapors that enveloped the earth, 
which was not until the fourth day. It is remarkable, 



GEOLOGY. 127 

moreover, that whereas at the end of each of the six work- 
ing days of creation we find an evening, the morning of the 
seventh, which is mentioned at the close of the sixth, is not 
followed by such a sequel, leading to the inference that it 
is still open. There is, therefore, no absolute and insur- 
mountable difficulty in our interpreting the word " day " to 
mean a period of time, which was occupied in the produc- 
tion of certain events upon the earth, and which is com- 
mensurate with the rise and decline of a definite order of 
existence upon its surface. And if there are no other rea- 
sons to forbid the interpretation, it appears to render the 
reconciliation of the facts of Geology with the Mosaic nar- 
rative at once simple and complete. 

There is, however, a Scriptural difficulty in the way of 
this hypothesis, which to some minds appears insurmount- 
able. This is found in the reason given in the book of 
Genesis and repeated in Exodus (xx. 11) for the institution 
of the Sabbath. We are commanded to work for six days, 
and rest on the seventh, because in six days God created 
the universe, and rested on the seventh. The days of the 
first part of the commandment are obviously those which 
compose the natural week. Then similar, it is argued, must 
be the days in the latter part ; otherwise the same word is 
used in two different significations in one passage of Scrip- 
ture. And if the meaning is not the same, how could the 
analogy hold good or where could be the legality of the 
inference ? 

To this objection Hugh Miller makes the following re- 
ply : " Is there any real difficulty," he asks, " in conceiving 
that the smaller divisions of human time are to be ordered 
after the larger ones employed by the Creator ? Work for 
six days and rest on the seventh, is the law which God has 
prescribed to himself and to us. But must his days and 
ours necessarily be of the same duration ? Must He be 
held to have crowded all the diversified phenomena of na- 



128 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

ture, past, present, and to come, into an hundred and forty- 
four hours, because that is the measure of a man's weekly 
labor? As a vast continent or the huge earth itself is 
very great, and a map or geographical globe very small ; 
but if in the map or globe, the proportions be faithfully 
maintained, and the scale, though a minute one, be true in 
all its parts and applications, we pronounce the map or 
globe, notwithstanding the smallness of its size, a faithful 
copy ; so may it be in regard to the divine and human pe- 
riods. The vastness of the one does not contradict the 
smallness of the other." 

In addition to this, " it may be maintained," says Mr. 
Bayne, " that the Age theory alone exhibits, in all their 
Scriptural and scientific breadth, the grounds of the Sab- 
batic rest. The scheme of the geologic periods points to 
the resting of God as a fact. Since the appearance of man 
in the world, the work of creation has ceased. No species 
is known to have come into existence since the procession 
of being was closed by its king. Here, then, is direct con- 
firmation of Scripture. And if the redemption of man is 
God's Sabbath day's work, and the reasoning head of this 
lower creation is permitted, on each recurrent Sabbath in 
the natural year, to praise and magnify His greatness in 
that work, shall we say that the sanctions attached to the 
Sabbath day have become, on account of the light cast 
by science on God's word, less binding or less sacred ? " 

In support of the same hypothesis, Professor Silliman 
says, — "The allusion in the commandments and in other 
parts of the Scriptures to the six days would of course be 
made in conformity with the language adopted in the nar- 
rative, which being for the masses of mankind was neces- 
sarily a popular history, although of divine origin ; and the 
historian adopted a division of time that was in general use, 
although as to half the time at least, it was inconsistent 
with astronomical laws. Extension of the time so as to 



GEOLOGY. 129 

cover the events by the operation of physical laws, re- 
moves every difficulty, and interferes with no doctrine of 
religion." l 

Each of these hypotheses, let it be observed, is perfectly 
consistent with the letter of Scripture, and if in consequence 
of the advancement of discovery, the former is rendered 
untenable, the latter will remove the difficulty, satisfactorily 
meet all the discoveries of the Geologist, and at the same 
time, sustain the Mosaic account of the Creation. 2 Either 
of them will harmonize with the indefinite periods of dura- 
tion, through which, as science has shown, our planet must 
have passed anterior to the appearance of man. There is, 
therefore, no ground for the objection of the infidel that 



1 Lecture on Geology before the Smithsonian Institute. 

a Another scheme of reconciliation has been proposed by a learned dis- 
senting divine of England, Dr. J. Pye Smith, in his " Relations of Scripture 
to Geology." He agrees with the first hypothesis in holding that the Mo- 
saic days were natural days, and that a vast undefined interval elapsed be- 
tween the commencement of these days and the original universal crea- 
tion announced in the first verse of Genesis, during which an almost un- 
limited series of changes in the structure and products of the earth may 
have taken place. After this, at a comparatively recent epoch, a small por- 
tion of the earth's surface was brought into a state of disorder, ruin and 
obscuration ; out of which the creation of the existing species of things, 
with the recall of light, and the restored presence of the heavenly bodies, 
took place literally, according to the Mosaic narrative, in six natural days. 
Outside the area of that limited creation, and during the period of its evo- 
lution, many of our present lands and seas may have enjoyed the light of 
the sun, and been tenanted by animals, and occupied by plants, the descend- 
ants of which still continue to exist. 

This theory, though supported by its author with great learning and in- 
genuity, has failed to win wide acceptance, and has now, probably, few, if 
any supporters, which may be accounted for by the fact that it is open to 
objections fully as grave as those which it removes. We find it hard to 
believe that the majestic sentences of the inspired historian require so great 
a diminution of the meaning we have been accustomed to attach to them. 
Moreover, as Ilugh Miller has observed, " although creation can not take 
place without a miracle ; it would be a strange reversal of all our previous 
conclusions on the subject, should we have to hold that the dead, dark blank 
out of which creation arose was miraculous also." 

6* 



130 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

the results of science contradict the cosmogony of Moses. 
It is for him to show that their reconciliation is impossible. 
If there is one mode of reconcilement, the authority of 
Scripture is sustained. 

Another point of contact between Geology and Scrip- 
ture, is the deluge of Noah. Until the discoveries of re- 
cent years, it was supposed that the inspired account of 
that awful judgment of God, was sufficiently vindicated by 
the organic remains which are found alike on the mountain 
summits and in torrent worn valleys of the earth. In this 
view geologists formerly acquiesced, and one of the most 
learned and able of their number, the author of the Bridge- 
water Treatise on Geology, wrote a book on the subject, 
describing a cave at Kirkdale, in Yorkshire, where bones 
of numerous animals had been accumulated, it was sup- 
posed, by the waters of the Noachian deluge. This view 
he afterwards retracted, and it is now held by all geologists 
that such conclusions were premature. A more rigid scru- 
tiny of the supposed diluvial evidences has assigned them 
to a far remoter epoch than the flood of Noah, and it is 
now considered as an established result of scientific research 
that no traces of a comparatively recent and temporary del- 
uge are now to be found on the earth's surface. The em- 
bedded shells and other fossils which are found on different 
tracts of the earth's surface, and which are probably to be 
ascribed to diluvial action of some kind, can not be, it is 
said, the results of o?ie universal simultaneous submergence, 
but of many distinct local aqueous forces, for the most part 
continued in action for long periods, and of a kind precisely 
analogous to those now at work. This final result of geo- 
logical research has been eagerly seized upon by the ene- 
mies of Revelation, and because there are no physical evi- 
dences of such a catastrophe as the flood whose history 
Moses has transmitted, they would impugn its credibility as 
an historical fact. " But is it not unreasonable to expect 



GEOLOGY. 131 

to find any traces of such an event at the present day so 
many ages after its occurrence ? Any marks it left, must 
have been long since obliterated, or so mixed up with the ef- 
fects of subsequent gradual changes as to be undecipherable, 
even if they ever possessed any characteristic features pecu- 
liar to themselves." The really strong objections are those 
which are urged against the deluge being in the widest 
sense universal ; and it must be conceded that some of 
these have considerable weight. The submersion of the 
entire globe would have been, it is said, an event for which 
there was no adequate reason ; and moreover, all the re- 
sources of nature would not have been sufficient to pro- 
duce it, and miracles are never resorted to unless demanded 
by some special exigency. The entire atmosphere condensed 
into rain, and the depths of the ocean utterly exhausted, 
would not have been sufficient, it is asserted, to envelop 
the globe with water to the height of fifteen cubits (twenty 
or more feet) above the summits of the loftiest mountains. 
The inmates of the ark raised above the earth to the eleva- 
tion of five miles, would have found an atmosphere, from 
its extreme tenuity or intense cold, fatal to animal life. If 
the omnipotence of Him to whom " all things are possible," 
be presented as a sufficient answer to such objections, yet 
there are certain facts (it has been urged), which go to 
prove that Almighty power was not on this occasion put 
forth to the extent supposed. These are found in the ap- 
pearance of various volcanic regions in different countries, 
especially in the province of Auvergne in the south of 
France. Here are to be seen the craters of volcanoes, ex- 
tinct long before the period when History commences, sur- 
rounded by beds of scorise and cinders, which it must have 
taken ages to accumulate, but which if the waters of Noah's 
deluge overflowed them, must have been entirely -swept 
away. Difficulties are also started about the capacity of the 
ark to contain pairs of all the different species of animals, 



132 TESTIMONY OE SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

including the peculiar and unique zoology of Australia and 
New Zealand, — about the possibility of nourishing them 
with appropriate food, and of their being dispersed from 
one point, the mountains of Ararat, across seas and oceans 
over the whole face of the earth. In view of these grave 
objections, it becomes important to ascertain whether the 
commonly received interpretation of the Mosaic account 
of the deluge is necessarily the correct one. Does the 
sacred writer intend to say that the entire globe, with its 
continents and islands, its hills and mountains, was all buried 
beneath the waters of the flood ? Certainly, he speaks of 
the purpose of God to " destroy the earth." He says, 
" All the high hills under the whole heaven were covered. 
But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, for the 
waters were on the face*of the whole earth. And I will es- 
tablish my covenant with you ; neither shall all flesh be cut 
off any more by the waters of a flood, neither shall there 
be any more a flood to destroy the earth." But similar 
terms are employed in other passages of Scripture in an 
evidently restricted sense. In another place in which it is 
evident that only Palestine and the countries in its immediate 
neighborhood can be meant, the language used by the in- 
spired writer is, — " This day will I begin to put the dread 
of thee and the fear of thee upon the nations that are un- 
der the whole Heaven, who shall hear report of thee, and 
shall tremble, and be in anguish because of thee." (Deut. ii. 
25.) And in other passages we read : " And the famine 
was over all the face of the earth. And all countries came 
into Egypt to Joseph to buy corn ; because that the famine 
was so sore in all lands." (Gen. xli. 56, 57.) Obadiah de- 
clares to Elijah, " As the Lord thy God liveth, there is no 
nation or kingdom whither my lord hath not sent to seek 
thee." In these instances universal terms have most clearly 
a limited signification. By what principle are we, then, to 
determine the extent of the signification of universal terms? 



GEOLOGY. 133 

Where are we to look for the key of the interpretation? 
Most clearly we must seek it in the general scope and pur- 
pose of the writer. What then are that scope and purpose 
in the case in question ? Are they to teach physical or 
moral truth — to write the natural history of the earth or 
the moral history of man ? The same writer who says : 
" In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth," 
says, " And behold I will destroy them with the earth." 
Would it not seem that the language in the latter case is 
of as wide a signification as in the former ? If we regard 
the words, we must answer in the affirmative ; if the spirit 
in the negative. In the history of the creation, the great 
purpose of the author was to teach the existence of one 
God, the Creator of all things, as a moral, however, rather 
than as a natural truth. Were there no moral relations 
between man and his Creator, were we not bound to wor- 
ship, love, serve, and obey Him as the source of all things, 
the doctrine would have found no place in a book whose 
object is to communicate to man religious knowledge. But 
the terms, the heavens and the earth, must here be taken 
in their widest sense. If not, the writer has failed of ex- 
pressing the idea of a one Creator. The earth, without 
any doubt, signifies the entire earth. Whatever be its 
form and dimensions, whether it be the earth of the He- 
brews, 

" Founded upon the seas, 
And established upon the floods," 

a stationary plain, or the revolving globe of modern science, 
it matters not ; it was all made in the beginning, by one 
God the Creator. Let us apply the same rule of interpre- 
tation to the history of the deluge. What in this history 
was the great object of the writer ? Obviously, to record 
a most important era in the dealings of God with mankind. 
It was to exhibit, as a moral example, the destruction of 
the human race by the hand of the Creator, repenting that 



134 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

He had made man upon the earth, so great had become his 
Violence and corruption. The destruction of the earth and 
of the brute creation was incidental to the major purpose. 
It would not have been mentioned, had it not been con- 
nected with the destruction of man. Aside from its moral 
bearings, it was as unimportant for the writer's great pur- 
pose, as the history of Sirius, or the changes which may- 
have occurred on the-planet Jupiter. "What was the earth, 
which was corrupt, — the earth which was filled with vio- 
lence ? Was it the entire terrestrial surface of the globe, 
inhabited or uninhabited, or was it rather that earth which 
was the abode of man — the theatre of human life ? Plainly 
the latter. Now this was the earth God announced his 
purpose to destroy. If the human race had become diffused 
co-extensively with the antediluvian earth, which might 
have been the fact, then, without doubt, the entire surface 
of the dry land was comprehended in the threatened de- 
struction of the earth. But if this was not the fact, then 
we can not fairly extend the sense of the sacred writers to 
include every portion of the terrestrial surface of the globe, 
inhabited or uninhabited, unless such a destruction • was 
incidentally necessary for the accomplishment of the great 
object. 1 

Most probably, however, the occupation of the earth's 
surface at that time was very limited, and the late Hugh 
Miller, in his " Testimony of the Rocks," has shown how 
all the phenomena of the Deluge might have been produced 
by the gradual submergence and rising again of the country 
comprised within a radius of a few hundred miles around 
the dwelling place of Noah, so as to include the portion of 
the globe then inhabited. This phenomenon of the change 
of level of large portions of the earth's surface, by depres- 
sion or elevation, is not unknown to geologists; though the 
periods in which these vast oscillations occur are of im- 
measurably longer duration than that of the Deluge. He 

1 Fellowe's History of the Deluge. 



GEOLOGY. 135 

shows that the depression during the first forty days might, 
nevertheless, have been so gradual as to be almost imper- 
ceptible, except from the effects — the pouring in of the 
mighty waters from the neighboring seas into the growing 
hollow, and the disappearance of the mountain tops. And 
when, after a hundred and fifty days had elapsed, the de- 
pressed hollow- began slowly to rise again, the boundless sea 
around the ark would flow outwards again towards the 
distant ocean, and Noah would see that " the fountains of 
the deep were stopped, and the waters were returning from 
off the earth continually." 

The above hypothesis, which was supported in former 
times by such eminent authorities as Bishop Stillingfleet and 
Matthew Poole, 1 furnishes a complete answer to all the ob- 

1 Said Bishop Stillingfleet, " I can not see any urgent necessity from the 
Scripture to assert that the flood did spread over all the surface of the 
earth. That all mankind, those in the ark excepted, were destroyed by it, 
is most certain, according to the Scriptures. The flood 'was universal as to 
mankind ; but from thence follows no necessity at all of asserting the uni- 
versality of it as to the globe of the earth, unless it be sufficiently proved 
that the whole earth was peopled before the flood, which I despair of ever 
seeing proved." — Orir/ines Sacra, B. 3, c. 4. 

The eminent commentator, Matthew Poole, in his Synopsis on Gen. 7 : 19, 
has the following observations : " It is not to be supposed that the entire 
globe of the earth was covered with water. Where was the need of over- 
whelming those regions in which there were no human beings? It would 
be highly unreasonable to suppose that mankind had so increased before 
the deluge, as to have penetrated to all the corners of the earth. Absurd 
it would be to affirm that the effects of the punishment inflicted upon men 
alone, applied to places in which there were no men. If then we should 
entertain the belief that not so much as the hundredth part of the globe 
was overspread with water, still the deluge would be universal, because 
the extirpation took effect upon all the part of the world which was then 
inhabited." 

To the above may be added the following remarks by Dr. King of Glas- 
gow, in his " Principles of Geology Explained." " If we adopt," he says, 
(p. 61,) "the principle which the Scripture itself so unequivocally sanctions 
— that general terms may be used with a limited sense — the whole account is 
simple and consistent. A deluge of great extent inundated the dry land. In 
respect to men, whom it was designed to punish for their wickedness, it was 



136 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

jections which were supposed to lie against the Mosaic his- 
tory of the Deluge, and derives from Geology a presumption 
in its favor, inasmuch as that science demonstrates that our 
globe at various periods must have been subjected to the 
operation of similar agencies. It is said that a recent ex- 
amination of a large tract of Asia, comprising Armenia, 
Georgia, and part of Persia, and of certain marine deposits 
which are found therein, is strongly corroborative of the 
same view. Not impossibly, we may be approaching the 
era of a more interesting discovery than that which has 
called forth ancient Nineveh from her long entombment. 
Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction, and it may be, 
says an able writer in the North British Review, that " the 
first city — the city of Enoch, may yet be surveyed in stone 
or in dust, beneath some nameless heap where the Arme- 
nian shepherd now feeds his flocks ; and the brass and iron 
utensils of Tubal Cain may yet exhibit to us the infant in- 
genuity of our race. The planks of Gopher wood which 
floated Noah over the universe of waters may yet rise 
from the flanks or the base of Ararat in lignite or in 
coal ; and the first altar — that which Noah builded to his 
Maker and Preserver, may yet be thrown up from its 
burying place by the mighty earthquakes that shake the 
plain of the Araxes." 

Whether these brilliant conjectures shall ever be realized 
or not, it is certain, that with the advancement of discovery, 
the opposition which had been supposed to exist between 
Revelation and Geology has disappeared, and of the eighty 
theories which the French Institute counted in 1806, as hos- 
tile to the Bible, not one now stands. " The minute philos- 
phers, to borrow an epithet of the great Berkeley, may 

universal, excepting only Noah and his family, whom it pleased God to spare 
alive. Along with them were preserved such animals as were most useful to 
them, and such as were fitted to fulfil the purposes of Providence after the 
waters should have retired." 



GEOLOGY. 137 

think for a time, that their boasted discoveries are irrecon- 
cileable with revelation. They may raise the sand hills of 
their systems, and think from them to demolish the fortress 
of the divine word. Vain and impotent the attempt ! Some 
fortunate discovery, as science advances, demolishes the 
whole by a single roll of its mighty waters, and the next 
wave dashes it into oblivion." "Shall it any longer be 
said, that a science which unfolds such abundant evidence 
of the being and attributes of God, can reasonably be viewed 
in any other light than as the efficient auxiliary and handmaid 
of religion ? Some there still may be, whom timidity, or 
prejudice, or want of opportunity, allow not to examine its 
evidence ; who are alarmed by the novelty, or surprised by 
the magnitude and extent of the views which geology forces 
on their attention ; and who would rather have kept closed 
the volume of witness which has been sealed up for ages 
beneath the surface of the earth than to impose on the stu- 
dent in natural theology the duty of studying its contents 
— a duty in which for lack of experience they may antici- 
pate a hazardous or laborious task, but which, by those en- 
gaged in it, is found to be a rational, and righteous, and 
delightful exercise of the highest faculties in multiplying 
the evidence of the existence, and attributes, and Provi- 
dence of God. The alarm, however, which was excited by 
its first discoveries, has well nigh passed away ; and those 
to whom it has been permitted to be the humble instruments 
of their promulgation, and who have steadily persevered, 
under the firm conviction that " truth can never be opposed 
to truth," and that the works of God when rightly under- 
stood, and viewed in their true relations, and from a right 
position, would at length be found to be in perfect accord- 
ance with his word, are now receiving their high reward 
in finding difficulties vanish, objections gradually withdrawn, 
and in seeing the evidences of geology admitted into the list 
of witnesses to the truth of the great fundamental doctrines 



138 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

of Christianity." Bridgewater Treatise on Geology, vol. i. 
p. 593. 

The claim which Dr. Buckland here asserts in behalf of 
his favorite science, finds still farther vindication in the im- 
portant services rendered by the discoveries of Geology to 
the cause of Revelation, in the unanswerable refutation they 
have furnished to the development hypothesis of Lamarck, 
Oken and others, and the once boasted argument of Hume 
against the miracles of the Bible. Akin to the nebular 
theory by which suns and planets are supposed to be grad- 
ually evolved by the condensation of a widely diffused 
vapor or fire-mist, a system has been devised and elabor- 
ated by a certain school of modern philosophers, supported 
by ingenious arguments and an imposing show of science, 
by which in place of the Almighty fiat calling them into 
existence, all vegetable and animal forms of organic life are 
accounted for by the agency of natural laws. Man has not 
been created but developed. " We call in question," says 
the author of the " Yestiges of Creation," "not merely the 
simple idea of the unenlightened mind, that God fashioned 
all in the manner of an artificer seeking by special means 
to produce special effects, but even the doctrine in vogue 
among men of science, that ' creative fiats ' were required 
for each new class, order, family, and species of organic 
beings, as they successively took their places upon the 
globe, or as the globe became gradually fitted for their 
reception." According to the Bible, " God said, Let us 
make man in our image, after our likeness. So God 
created man in his own image, in the image of God created 
He him." But according to this theory, a " primary cause," 
w T hich philosophy does not venture to define, created at 
first only microscopic monads or embryonic points, and 
from these, by a process of natural development extending 
through vast, indefinite periods of duration, arose all the 
various tribes of animated being. Creatures of " the sim- 



GEOLOGY, 139 

pi est and most primitive type gave birth to a type superior 
to it in compositeness of organization and endowment of 
faculties ; this again produced the next higher^ and so on 
to the highest ; the advance being in all cases, small, but 
not of any determinate extent." Thus one unbroken chain 
connects the animalcule with man ! Such is the theory by 
which " science falsely so called " would remove the Crea- 
tor from his throne to be replaced by a blind necessity 
called the law of development. But how does it agree 
with the stubborn facts of inductive science? Ask the 
geologist what witnesses he has found in the primitive 
records of the rocks, and he will tell you that "he has 
gone down in his search to the foundations of the earth, 
where the igneous rocks have warned him that he had 
reached primaeval creation ; and in his upward journey he 
has met with mosses and ferns and palms, and higher vege- 
table productions ; each of which, as standing at the head 
of a species, he is bound to regard as having been brought 
into existence separately and independently. 1 Ascending 

1 The following valuable observations on this point are from a recent 
scientific work of the highest authority. " There are no doubt differences in 
the individuals of a species, depending on soil, and on different conditions of 
heat, light and moisture. But these differences are not incompatible with 
the idea of a common origin ; and, moreover, we find that there is always a 
tendency to return to type. What is called a variety, is an individual of a 
species exhibiting variations which are not in general of a permanent char- 
acter, and which can not be kept up in the natural state, or, in ordinary cir- 
cumstances, by seed. By means of buds or slips such varieties may be con- 
tinued ; but if their seeds are sown in ordinary soil, and left to grow wild, 
the plants tend to return to the specific type. In certain plants, such as 
cereal crops and culinary vegetables, varieties have been perpetuated from 
seed by the art of cultivation ; and thus races are kept up by artificial means. 
But when the seeds of such plants are sown in ordinary circumstances, and 
the plants are allowed to grow wild, we then see that there is a return to the 
parent type. In illustration of this statement, we may refer to ordinary 
vegetables, such as cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, etc. (Brassica Oleracea.) 
This plant grows wild on our sea shores in certain places, and when culti- 
vated it assumes peculiar forms. Thus it forms a heart, as in ordinary cab- 
bage ; its flower stalks become thickened or shortened, as in cauliflower or 



140 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

higher still, he has discovered various forms of animal life, 
higher and lower ; and lie confesses that he knew no other 
or scientific way of accounting for their existence, than 
that of a new creation — the action of a power above nature 
bringing them into nature. Ask him if " development " is 
not equal to the production of those forms ? and he will 
tell you, that in all his scientific observations he has never 
known the occurrence of the transition of one of these 
forms of life to another, — he has never witnessed the oper- 
ation, and the earth has disclosed to him no case in which 
it was progressing or performed. But, as Cuvier asks, 
" why, if such transformations have occurred, do not the 
bowels of the earth preserve the records of such a cu- 
rious genealogy ? " That they are wholly unknown to the 
realms of nature is a point upon which the most distin- 
guished geologists and anatomists are unanimous. At 
each arrangement of organic life after the creation, says 
Professor Sedgwick, " tribes of sentient beings were created 
and lived their time upon the earth. At succeeding epochs, 
new tribes of beings were called into existence, not merely 
as the progeny of those that had appeared before them, but 
as new and living proofs of creative interference, — and 
though formed on the same plan and bearing the same 
marks of wise contrivance, often as unlike those that pre- 

broccoli ; or its cellular tissue is largely developed, so as to give rise to the 
curled appearance of greens. These varieties are continued by cultivation ; 
and after a series of generations, the seeds of the varieties propagate, more 
or less completely, plants of a similar nature. But if they are allowed to 
grow wild, then in the progress of time the variations disappear, and the 
original type of the species is reverted to. The varieties of apples and pears 
are continued by the art of horticulture and the process of grafting; but the 
seeds of these plants, when allowed to grow wild, produce the original stock, 
viz., the crab apple or crab pear, whence all the varieties have been pro- 
duced. All these facts show the permanency of species in nature, and con- 
tradict the crude ideas of those so-called naturalists, who state that one 
species can be transmuted into another in the course of generations." — Botany 
and Religion, hy Prof. Balfour. 



GEOLOGY. 141 

ceded them, as if they had been matured in a different 
portion of the universe, and cast upon the earth by the 
collision of another planet." " For myself," says Agassiz, 
" I have the conviction that species have been created suc- 
cessively at distant intervals, and that the changes which 
they have undergone during a geological epoch are very 
secondary, relating only to their fecundity, and to migra- 
tions dependent on epochal influences." Lyell gives it as 
the result of careful inquiry, " that species have a real ex- 
istence in nature, and that each was endowed at the time 
of its creation with the attributes and organs by which it is 
now distinguished." " Everything," says Sir Charles Bell, 
in his Bridgewater Treatise, " declares the species to have 
its origin in a distinct creation, not in a gradual variation 
from some original type; and any other hypothesis than 
that of a new creation of animals suited to the successive 
changes in the inorganic matter of the globe — the condition 
of the water, atmosphere, and temperature — brings with it 
only an accumulation of difficulties." * That new species 
of living creatures were introduced at various periods in 
the history of the ancient earth, is one of the most certain 
of the discoveries of geology, and as no cause can be found 
among natural agents fitted to produce the effect, we are 
compelled to recognize the only known cause capable of 
producing it — the fiat of the Creator. " Nature is but the 
name for an effect whose cause is God." a 

1 Pearson on Infidelity. 

3 In a recent inaugural address at Edinburgh University, Sir David Brew- 
ster thus scatters the air-woven speculations of Mr. Darwin : " As Mr. Dar- 
win has appealed to facts and principles in support of his theory, we must 
appeal to facts and principles for its refutation. He maintains : 1. That va- 
riations in species actually arise in the course of descents from a common 
progenitor. 2. That many of these variations are an improvement on the 
original stock. 3. That, by a continued natural selection, from among these 
improved specimens, occasioned by a struggle for life, the most vigorous in- 
dividuals become the progenitors of the next generation. 4. That there is a 
power in nature everywhere affecting this selection. Naturalists of high 



142 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

The same geological discoveries strike also at the root 
of every sceptical argument against miracles. As these 
constitute a main pillar of Christian evidences, the enemies 
of the Bible have taxed all their resources of wit and 
sophistry to break down their testimony. Hume argued 
against their probability on account of their being opposed 
to what he calls " the uniform experience of mankind," and 
his followers in the school of doubt, at the present day, 
deny the possibility of supernatural interposition in any 
case whatever. Because a certain order and arrangement 
have been impressed upon the face of nature, in accordance 
with which, as by an inevitable necessity, fire will burn and 
a body will sink in water, and other physical causes pro- 
duce their customary effects, therefore, the sceptic argues, 
" the antecedent improbability of a miracle or a deviation 
from the laws of nature is so great, that no testimony in its 
behalf can ever possibly amount to a probability, much less 
to a proof." By various learned pens, the fallacy of this 

authority have followed Mr. Darwin through all his arguments, and have 
shown in the clearest manner that his theory is inconsistent with the very 
facts upon which he has rested it. It is out of my sphere, and yours also, to 
discuss this question as one of natural history ; but even in this aspect of it, 
we may allow that species do admit of great variations, and may, by new 
methods of feeding and culture, rise to a higher scale, and yet deny that 
there is any evidence even of one species of the same genus having passed 
into another, and still less that fish have passed into fowl, or birds into 
beasts, or quadrupeds into men. "We have absolute proof, indeed, of this 
immutability of species, whether we search for it in historic or geological 
times. The cat and dog embalmed in Egypt four thousand years ago, are 
the same as the cat and dog of the present day ; and in the fossil remains of 
the pre-Adamite ages, there is not the slightest proof of any variations in the 
successive inhabitants of the earth. Mr. Darwin himself admits, to use his 
own words, 'that this is the most obvious and grave objection to his 
theory ; ' but yet he conjectures that rocks still undiscovered, and myriads 
of years older than the Cambrian or azoic strata, may still bear testimony to 
his views. When such strata with such indications are discovered, when 
the instinct of the elephant shall have expanded into reason, and the chatter 
of the parrot have its climax in speech, we may then claim kindred with the 
brutes that perish." 



GEOLOGY. 143 

• 

reasoning has been most thoroughly and ably exposed. It 
has been shown that the objection confounds general with 
universal experience, and that nothing can be more un- 
founded and irrational than to assume that all things which 
are or can be, must fall within the measure of the finite 
understanding of man. As well might a blind man assume 
that, through the senses he possesses, he gains all possible 
knowledge of creation. Miracles are not a breaking in 
upon the order of nature "in any other sense than that in 
which the will of man, in every moment of man's conscious 
existence, is a breaking in upon the order of nature. In 
this sense all the world is a scene of perpetual confusion — 
it is a chaos of 'violences;' for wherever man comes in 
upon the material world, he comes in to turn aside its 
course, or to interrupt, or to give a new direction to, its 
order. The order of nature allows the bird to wing itself 
from East to West, or from tree to tree ; but the shaft of 
the savage, or the gun of the sportsman, brings its plumage 
to the dust." But apart from reasoning, here is "testi- 
mony" from "the rocks" which cannot be gainsayed or 
eluded. Geology furnishes evidences, in the changes both 
of the globe itself and of its successive living creatures, 
that the course of nature has not always been what it is 
now. It is certain that the whole globe has once been in a 
state of igneous fusion ; that there was a time when no an- 
imals or plants existed on the earth ; that several distinct 
economies of life, or groups of animals and plants, have 
occupied the surface, each adapted to the altered condition 
of things ; that these ancient races have been unlike one 
another, and with a few exceptions in the highest forma- 
tions, unlike those alive, the resemblance between the liv- 
ing and fossil types becoming more unlike as we descend ; 
and that man's appearance on the globe has been compara- 
tively recent. Thus through the measureless ages before 
the appearance of man, the history of the creation had 



144 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

been the history of the miraculous. And is it philosophi- 
cal to conclude, that on the creation of man everything of 
this nature abruptly and forever ceased? May we not 
more rationally infer that if God has so frequently inter- 
posed by special acts in the ages preceding the present 
state of the globe, it forms a strong presumption that He 
has done so at that most wondrous epoch of the world's 
history — the introduction of Christianity ? The miracles 
of the Bible are in themselves worthy of His infinite wis- 
dom, majesty and grace, — they are authenticated by the 
clearest and most commanding evidence, and Geology has 
now shown that there is no antecedent improbability which 
should forbid their reception. 



CHAPTEE III, 

PHYSICAL SCIENCE CONTINUED. 

We have thus far seen that there is no real discrepancy 
or contradiction between the teachings of Astronomy and 
Geology and the statements of the Bible, and that as those 
sciences have advanced, previous difficulties have vanished, 
and the closer has the harmony been manifested that exists 
between the records of revelation and the operations of 
the Creator in the material world. Our object in the 
present chapter will be to show that this harmony is capa- 
ble of yet wider illustration, and that the more thoroughly 
we investigate the relations of the Sacred Scriptures with 
Physical Science, the clearer and more convincing will be 
the evidence that the Author of nature and of revelation 
is the same. 

How can the sceptic account for the -undeniable fact 
that no errors or absurdities connected with science, are to 
be found in the Bible ? The Mosaic records date back to 
the infancy of our race, and the entire sacred canon was 
closed ages before the wondrous march of scientific dis- 
covery can be said to have commenced ; yet in the numer- 
ous references and allusions which the inspired writers 
make to physical facts, though expressed in language suited 
to all time, and capable of being understood in ages wholly 
ignorant of science, not all the light which, in the present 
and preceding centuries, has been thrown upon the secrets 
of nature, has been able to detect a single blunder or dis- 
crepancy. 

1 



146 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

This is a test which the Zendavesta, the Koran and the 
Shaster, with all the oracles held sacred by the heathen, 
cannot stand. As soon as they touch upon the domains 
of science, their statements reveal the grossest ignorance, 
so that it has been said that the spread of scientific knowl- 
edge ensures the overthrow of all the religions of heathen- 
dom. The slightest examination of the sacred books of the 
heathen, and even of the systems of their most renowned 
philosophers, will show that their science was no less absurd 
than their theology. 

Thus in Greek and Latin philosophy, the heavens were 
a solid vault over the earth, a sphere studded with stars, as 
Aristotle called them. The sages of Egypt held that the 
world was formed by the motion of the air and the upward 
course of flame ; Plato that it was an intelligent being ; 
Xenophanes that God and the world were the same thing. 
Empedocles maintained that there were two suns ; Leucip- 
pus that the stars were kindled by their motions, and that 
they nourished the sun with their fires. 

Some of the followers of Pythagoras supposed the 
milky way to be an old disused path of the sun, out of 
which, some said, he was frightened by the banquet of 
Thyestes. Anaxagoras is said to have thought it was the 
shadow of the earth ; Aristotle believed it to be sublunary, 
and to consist of exhalations of the same matter as comets. 
Posidonius took it for a band of fire ; Theophrastus for a 
solid and luminous band, joining together the two hemi- 
spheres; while Diodorus thought it was a celestial fire 
shining through the cliffs of the solid heavens. 

Another class of Greek philosophers conjectured that 
matter is eternal, and that all the beauty, order, and gran- 
deur of the universe, are the result of chance or a fortui- 
tous concourse of atoms ! 

All Eastern nations believed that the heavenly bodies 
exercised powerful influence over human affairs, often of a 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 147 

disastrous kind, and that all nature was composed of four 
elements, viz., fire, air, earth and water, — substances cer- 
tainly not elementary. 

In the Hindoo Philosophy, the globe is represented as 
flat and triangular, composed of several stories, the whole 
mass being sustained upon the heads of elephants, who in 
turn were supported by a huge tortoise. Their shaking of 
themselves was supposed to be the cause of earthquakes. 
Mahomet taught that the mountains were created to pre- 
vent the earth from moving and to hold it as by anchors 
and chains. The Fathers of the Church themselves teach 
doctrines scarcely less absurd. "The rotundity of the 
earth is a theory," says Lactantius, " which no one is igno- 
rant enough to believe." And even the great Kepler, who 
made some of the most important discoveries ever achieved 
in science, was not freed from those strange and to us child- 
ish iinasrininffs, which were current in former times as ex- 
planations of difficult problems in the phenomena of nature. 
In 1619 he published a work in which he affirmed that the 
earth was a living animal, for that "when a stone was. 
thrown into the deep clefts of a high mountain, a sound 
was returned from them ; and when it was thrown into one 
of the mountain lakes, which, without doubt, were bottom- 
less, a storm immediately arose ; just as a ticklish animal 
would shake its head, or run shuddering away, when a straw 
was thrust into his ear or nose." This was the extravagant 
conception of one of the world's master minds, the observer 
for whom (according to his own famous boast) the universe 
so long had waited. Yet the same work contains a defence 
of the view that the orbs of heaven are engaged in perform- 
ing a concert of music, in which Jupiter and Saturn take 
the bass ; Mars, the Earth, and Venus, the tenor ; and Mer- 
cury the treble. 

In their observation of those positive facts which are 
the basis of natural science, we find the same credulity and 



148 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

extravagance. " If the theologians of pagan antiquity were 
poets, as Bacon observes, their naturalists were even worse. 
Animals that crowded about their steps, and which they 
could not move their eyes without seeing, are the heroes of 
the most extravagant legends. The whole world is meta- 
morphosed by superstition. Truth is ignominiously swept 
out, and dreams substituted for reality. Writers stride 
forward from prodigy to prodigy, with the arrogance and 
self-esteem of authors who scorn to be observers. 

"According to the doctrine of the Metempsychosis, 
introduced into Greece by Pythagoras and Timaeus, the 
brute animals are human beings in altered forms. In their 
new shape, they preserve a recollection of their former 
condition. They were believed by some philosophers to 
possess three souls — the sensitive, rational, and vegetative 
soul — corresponding to what, in recent times, has been 
termed intellectual, organic, and animal life. A book was 
written by Plutarch, to prove that animals possess reason, 
inasmuch as the operations of our boasted understanding 
are more liable to error than the mysterious operations 
of instinct, Poets, and even philosophers, regarded them 
as our earliest teachers of the useful arts. 

"According to Pliny, fishes with horses' heads were 
often seen in the Arabian Sea, out of which they crawled 
at night to graze in the fields. The same learned writer 
testifies to having seen a centaur, embalmed in honey, ex- 
hibited in Rome in the reign of Claudius, while the earliest 
Christian writers, Justin, Cyprian and Jerome, admit their 
existence, and believed them to be fallen angels, condemned 
to wander through dismal solitudes and uninhabited forests, 
until the day of judgment. 

" The existence of the phoenix also was an object of the 
firmest belief in the ancient world, and is attested by the 
very gravest historians. The appearance of a phoenix in 
the consulship of Paulus Fabius, and Vitellius, or the thir- 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 149 

ty-fourth year of our era, is described by Tacitus as an 
eveut of the first importance, and worthy of transmission 
to the remotest posterity. " Every five hundred years the 
phoenix," says Tacitus, " comes into existence, though it is 
true," he adds, " some assign four hundred and sixty-one 
years as the true period. The first phoenix appeared in 
the reign of Sesostris ; the second was seen in the reign 
of Amasis; and the last under Ptolemy III. This last 
phoenix, surrounded by a crowd of feathered attendants 
whom it far outshone in splendor of plumage, took its 
flight to Heliopolis, the city of the sun." 

Pliny also gravely informs us that " it is not generally 
known, what has been discovered by men eminent for their 
learning, in consequence of their assiduous observations of 
the heavens, that the fires which fall upon the earth, and 
which receive the name of thunderbolts, proceed from 
the three superior stars, but principally from the one (Ju- 
piter) that is placed in the middle." 

To this list of absurdities which the most gifted and cul- 
tivated minds once mistook for science, a list which might 
be indefinitely extended, we will only add that Virgil has 
anticipated the famous " discovery " of Mr. Crosse. In his 
fourth Georgic, he gives a recipe for the production of bees 
where the hive may have lost its usual colony, whereby a 
brood of the ingenious insects may be " spontaneously gen- 
erated " from the blood of a slaughtered heifer. 1 

How striking a contrast to this mass of error and ab- 
surdity, is presented in the pages of the Bible ! Though 
composed long before the dawn of science, and though few 
of its writers could lay claim even to the learning and 
culture that were attainable in the times in which they 
lived, they have yet so written as to stand the test of sci- 
ence. No crude theories or exploded principles of Astron- 
omy, Geology, or any of the sciences, no story of the four 
1 Georgics, iv, 808. 



150 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

elements, no legend of such terrestrial supporters as the 
tortoise and the elephant, are to be found within its com- 
pass. While the stars are frequently introduced in Scrip- 
ture language in magnificent comparisons, there is no men- 
tion of their benign or malign aspects ; we have none of 
the nonsense of Astrology, which pervaded all reference to 
the heavenly bodies in the writings of learned men until 
two centuries ago. There is not a shadow of this in the 
Bible ; star-gazers and prognosticators are mentioned there 
only to be derided. And of such monstrous absurdities 
respecting the facts of the kingdom of nature, as those 
which, as we have seen, received the undoubting credence 
of the best minds of antiquity, there is not the slightest trace. 
" And to what can this immeasurable superiority of the 
sacred writers be ascribed, but to the direct influence and 
control of an Omniscient Mind, whose instruments they 
were ? Must we not be compelled to perceive the infinite 
wisdom of God overruling their thoughts and guiding their 
expressions ; guarding their ignorance against intruding into 
a domain foreign to their subject ? so that, whether they 
pursue the course of sober narrative, or pour forth the out- 
bursts of prophetic song, they never imperil or degrade 
the truth of God by entwining around it the foreign growth 
of human prejudices and misconceptions in science. In 
their writings, the tree of life shoots up like the palm tree 
in the desert, with straight tapering stem, free from every 
meaner undergrowth and parasitical appendages, waving its 
verdant crown in the pure air and calm light of Heaven." 1 
And not only is the Bible free from every shade of er- 
ror ; — its language possesses another remarkable charac- 
teristic, which has already received partial illustration. 
Though it is the language of appearances and carefully 
avoids scientifical technicalities, it can yet be readily ad- 
justed to every new scientific discovery, and harmonized 
1 Thompson's Lectures on Inspiration. 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 151 

with every successive stage of human advancement. " As 
each new world of wonders has risen upon our view, and 
each grand discovery has added-its light to the firmament 
of our science, the language of the Bible has opened to re- 
ceive it, as if endued with the power of an endless life, and 
the expansive power of an infinite intelligence. In a mul- 
titude of passages, its pregnant oracular words, enigmatical 
and dark at first, have become luminous with the lapse of 
time." 1 As obscure prophecies have been made plain by 
the events which fulfilled them, so the progress of science 
enables us now to see that its brilliant discoveries were al- 
ready anticipated in the sacred word. 

A striking example of the Bible's entire avoidance of 
error in its allusions to the grand phenomena of nature is 
found in the 104th Psalm. This magnificent composition, 
than which, says Bishop Lowth, " nothing can be conceived 
more perfect of its kind," demonstrates the glory of the 
Creator from the wisdom, beauty, and variety of his works. 
It may be considered as a poetical version of the narrative 
of creation in Genesis. Like Moses, the inspired Psalmist 
begins with God, the Almighty King of kings, whose rai- 
ment is the light, whose palace is in the heavens, whose 
chariots are the clouds, and whose retinue are angelic spir- 
its, who hasten like the wind and the lightning to fulfil his 
pleasure. He then glances to the earth and tells us who 
" laid its foundations that they should not be moved for- 
ever." " From the inanimate creation he makes a transition 
by the springs and streams of water to the living creatures 
which quench their thirst and rejoice in their Creator's 
bounty. He speaks of the provision made for such crea- 
tures as the wild asses of the desert, and the fowls of heaven 
which sino- among the branches of the trees. And then he 
speaks of man, of the provision made for man, and of the 
adaptation of all things to man, the chief of all these lower 
1 Literary Attractions of the Bible, by Dr. Halsey. 



152 TESTIMONY OP SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

works of God." The whole psalm is written in the highest 
style of poetry, and yet in all this wide range of topics, the 
keenest eye of science cannot discern the slightest error, 
while the phenomenal language respecting the earth's im- 
movability, as has already been shown, contains an implied 
recognition of a great scientific truth. How remarkable a 
testimony to the Bible this accuracy is, will be felt when it 
is remembered that Milton, who wrote his immortal poem 
hardly two hundred years ago, speaks of the " five other 
wandering fires," supposing that to be the number of the 
planets which with the earth and sun make up our system. 
~No such charge of ignorance can be fixed upon David or 
any other of the sacred writers. Baron Humboldt, who 
cannot be accused of any undue partiality for the Bible, 
thus speaks of this sacred hymn : " We are astonished to 
find in a lyrical poem of such a limited compass, the whole 
universe — the heavens and the earth — sketched with a few 
bold touches. The calm and toilsome life of man, from the 
rising of the sun to the setting of the same when his daily 
work is done, is here contrasted with the moving life of the 
elements of nature. This contrast and generalization in 
the conception of natural phenomena, and the retrospection 
of an omnipresent invisible Power, which can renew the 
earth or crumble it to dust, constitute a solemn and exalted 
form of poetic creation." 

Surely a sketch of the " Cosmos " which was written 
when science, at least what is now recognized as such, can 
hardly be said to have existed, and which yet elicited the 
admiration of a mind like Humboldt's, familiar with the 
whole range of science, must have been penned under the 
guidance of Omniscience. 

But there are also other instances in the Bible of what 
we can now perceive to be anticipations of the brilliant 
discoveries of science. 

Thus the Bible has anticipated science in the distinction 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 153 

which Moses makes between the primitive light and that 
whose benefits we derive from the sun. He has represented 
it to us as an element independent of that luminary, having 
been called forth by the Almighty fiat on the first day, 
whereas he seems to ascribe the creation of the sun and 
moon to the fourth day. This statement was long regarded 
by believers in Revelation as a great difficulty, and was 
pointed to by the sceptic as a palpable contradiction to 
physical facts. It was thought impossible that light could 
have existed apart from that great luminary which presides 
over the day. But the advance of science has dispelled the 
difficulty and established the accuracy of the Mosaic narra- 
tive. The exhumed remains of animals belonging to ages 
long preceding man's appearance on earth, had eyes, which 
by a necessary inference argued the co-existence of light. 
It is now known also, that the gigantic vegetation which 
produced the coal deposits could not have grown nnder the 
blaze of solar light. This conclusion is a result of botani- 
cal considerations. Moreover, the fossils of plants and an- 
imals which are found in the rocks of the carboniferous 
period in all latitudes, being analogous only to those which 
now flourish between the tropics, reveal a state of climate 
which could not have been governed in any great degree 
by the rays of the sun, Late discoveries also of certain 
peculiarities in the nature of light have given additional 
strength and probability to the theory of vibrations, accord- 
ing to which there is an ethereal fluid diffused throughout 
the universe of inconceivable rarity and elasticity, and that 
light and heat are phenomena evolved from it by the ac- 
tion of the sun. In harmony with this hypothesis, a more 
critical examination of the original language of the Scrip- 
tures, has shown that it is not said that light was created 
or made, but it was called forth, i. e., commanded to shine 
out of the darkness which was upon the face of the deep ; 
and the sun and moon are styled, not lights, but " light 



154 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

bearers," intimating that they were but reflectors of light 
to the earth, and that it existed independently of them. 

In the twenty-eighth chapter of Job, which has already 
been quoted, we find also a remarkable anticipation of 
modern discovery in relation to the laws which govern 
light. " The day spring " is there said " to take hold of 
the ends of the earth," and " it is turned as clay to the 
seal, and they stand as a garment." In this beautiful figure 
there is an allusion to the cylindrical seals that were used 
in ancient Babylon. Just as such a seal rolls over the blank 
and formless clay, and there instantly starts up in relief a 
fine group of objects, so the day spring revolves over the 
space which the darkness made empty and void ; and as if 
created by the movement, all things stand forth in brilliant 
attire. 

But there is evidently here a reference to that adapta- 
tion of light to the earth's atmosphere and to that property 
of light by which it is refracted, bends down, and takes 
hold of us by slow degrees. The action of the atmosphere 
upon the course and direction of the sun's rays, is the cause 
of the day's breaking upon us with such delicacy and gen- 
tleness. If there were no atmosphere, the sun would burst 
upon us suddenly, and we should pass in an instant from 
the darkness of night to the full blaze of day; but now 
the air waits for his coming, and " takes hold " of his rays, 
and bending and refracting them, gradually spreads them 
over the horizon, thus gently drawing aside the curtain of 
night, and revealing the radiance of the sky, the verdure 
of the fields, the tints of flowers, the lovely diversity of 
the landscape, all clad in 

" Nature's resplendent robe ! 1 
Without whose vesting beauty all were wrapped 
In unessential gloom." 

1 A remarkable illustration of the fundamental doctrine of the Holy Trin- 
ity, which has been developed by modern researches into the laws and prop- 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 155 

Iii like manner, Scripture first informed us that God 
"gave to the air its weight, and to the waters their just 
measure." ' The property which is here assigned to the 
invisible but potent fluid which surrounds the earth, re- 
mained unknown, even to such students of nature as Aris- 
totle and Bacon, until the experiments of Galileo and Tori- 
celli demonstrated a truth which had lain uncomprehended 
in the Bible for ages. The " measure of the waters " ex- 
presses that existing proportion of land and sea which the 
advancement of physical knowledge now enables us to per- 

erties of light, claims an insertion here. " Light is easily separated into its 
component colors, by transmitting it through a glass prism, where it is re- 
solved into red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet, which consti- 
tute, when combined, white or ordinary light. This band of colors is called 
spectrum. Now it will be perceived that red, yellow and blue are its primary 
or essential colors, the others being merely produced by the admixture or 
overlapping of two adjoining primary colors ; thus, orange is found between 
the red and yellow, green between the yellow and blue ; so that, in fact, we 
have only the three primary colors to deal with, each of which has its peculiar 
properties and attributes distinct from the others ; thus, the red is the calor- 
ific or heating principle ; the yellow is the luminous or light-giving principle ; 
while it is in the blue ray that the power of actinism, or chemical action is 
found. Now, it is this trinity of red, yellow and blue, which constitutes, 
when combined, the unity of ordinary or white light. When separated, this 
unity of light is divided into the trinity of colors. Although one and the 
same, neither can exist without the other. The three are one, the one is 
three. Thus we have a unity in trinity, and a trinity in unity exemplified in 
light itself; and " God is light." Plants will live and grow luxuriantly un- 
der the influence of the red and yellow rays ; but however promising the 
appearance, the blossom dies, and no fruit can be produced without the en- 
livening power of the blue rays. When this invisible action is wanting, the 
trinity and unity is incomplete. Life is unproductive until the three, united 
in one, bring all things to perfection. Thus each member of the trinity in 
unity of light has its especial duty to perform, and is in constant operation 
visibly or invisibly, although one power. Even far beyond the visible violet 
ray of the prismatic spectrum, the spirit of actinism prevails. Its chemical 
influence can be proved to extend beyond the limits of our vision. Thus there 
is in light an invisible agency always in action ; and the more the subject is 
investigated, the more striking is the illustration between the Holy Spirit of 
God made manifest, and the wonderful properties of light which have been 
gradually unfolded by the researches of man." — Temple Bar Magazine. 
1 Job xxviii, 25. " Ruach" in this passage evidently means air. 



156 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

ceive to be just that which is essential to the maintenance 
of both animal and vegetable life. 

The superior weight of the atmosphere is the interme- 
diate cause by which " vapors ascend from the ends of the 
earth," enumerated by David in the 135th Psalm, among 
the special reasons for thankfulness to God. Yet it is only 
by the aid of modern science that we are enabled to under- 
stand the importance of this arrangement. We now per- 
ceive that if this wonderful and extensive process of nature 
were to cease, there would be no rains or dews to fertilize 
our fields, and the consequence would be, the earth would 
be parched, and the vegetable productions which afford us 
subsistence would wither and decay, the whole system of 
terrestrial nature would be deranged, and man, and all the 
other tribes of animated nature deprived of those comforts 
which are essential to their existence, would in a short time 
perish from the earth. 

Science has of late endeavored to investigate the laws 
which govern the winds and rule the sea, and has arrived 
at some interesting conclusions ; but in a few words, the 
royal Solomon has expressed truths which volumes have 
been written to illustrate. He tells us that " the wind goeth 
toward the south, and turneth about unto the north ; it 
whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again 
according to his circuits." That is, various and capricious 
as their movements may appear, they are yet governed by 
laws as fixed and certain as those which regulate the tides 
of the ocean or the orbits of the planets. The same All- 
wise and Almighty Ruler who hath set bounds to the 
waters of the deep, and said to them, " Hitherto shalt thou 
come, and no further," hath assigned " their circuits " to 
the winds of heaven, from which they cannot deviate, and 
within which they are perpetually confined. Again he 
says, " all the rivers run into the sea ; yet the sea is not full ; 
unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 157 

return again." What is this but a setting forth of that 
wonderful and beautiful economy of nature, according to 
which the thirsty air is continually drinking up the sea — i 
sucking up the waters of the deep in spongy clouds, and 
bearing them, away upon the winga of the wind, and dash- 
ing them against the lofty ridges of the land, and thus 
filling the far off lakes and far up fountain heads whence 
the rivers come ; and thereby maintaining, undisturbed and 
unaltered from age to age, that ceaseless circulation of the 
watery element, by virtue of which the rivers continually 
flow, while yet no increase is ever made to the volume of 
the deep — a perfect balance being thus preserved between 
them. Science is beginning to unfold the wisdom and 
harmony of cosmical arrangements, but it is evident that 
some at least of her discoveries had been " searched out " 
by Solomon long ago. 

An interesting example of the correctness of Scripture 
allusion to physical facts has been recently pointed out by 
one of the most distinguished of living geologists. It has 
been found that the distribution of gold in its original vein- 
stone, or parent rock, differs from that of every other metal 
in the superficial range of its particles or threads. Lodes 
of iron, copper, and argentiferous lead ores, when followed 
downward, generally become more and more productive — 
the reverse being the case with gold. " The indisputable 
fact is, that the chief qucmtities of gold, including all the 
considerable lumps and pepitas, having been originally 
embedded in the upper parts of the vein-stones, have been 
broken up and transported with the debris of the mountain 
tops into slopes and adjacent valleys. . . . Modern science, 
instead of contradicting, only confirms the truth of the 
aphorism of the patriarch Job, which thus shadowed forth 
the downward persistence of the one and the superficial 
distribution of the other : " Surely there is a vein for the 
silver. . . . The earth hath dust of gold." (Job xxviii, 1, 
6.) Murchison's Siluria, p. 457. 



158 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

A very remarkable expression occurs in the Apocalypse 
(xvi, 18), bearing on the work of preparing the earth for 
man before man was made : " And there was a great earth- 
quake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so 
mighty an earthquake and so great." There the advent of 
man as an inhabitant of this earth, is formally given as the 
epoch after which great earthquakes did not occur. It is 
well known now that earthquakes must have rent this 
globe before the birth of man, which make all that have 
occurred since sink into insignificance ; but how was John 
the fisherman led to employ, eighteen hundred years ago, 
a phraseology which the researches of our own day have 
now for the first time shown to be philosophically exact ? 
Speaking of this verse and quoting it freely, John Bunyan 
(Reign of Antichrist) says, " For the earthquake, it is said 
to be such as never was, so mighty an earthquake and so 
great." He thought the phrase " since men were upon the 
earth," was equivalent to " never," and was thus led into 
what we now see to be an error. What but the superin- 
tendence of the Omniscient Spirit preserved John the 
Apostle from the mistake into which John Bunyan fell ? 

Still other facts of Physical science that are indicated in 
the Bible might be enumerated. But enough have been 
given to justify the remark of the illustrious Sir John Her- 
schel, "that all human discoveries seem to be made only 
for the purpose of confirming more strongly the truths 
come from on high, and contained in the sacred writings." 

This does not, however, exhaust the testimony of Phys- 
ical science to the Bible. Not only are the primary facts 
of the kingdom of nature accurately delineated in the pages 
of Scripture, but those great principles which are the ulti- 
mate results of science, and which have been obtained by 
long and laborious processes of induction, are there recog- 
nized and frequently and plainly asserted. 

Thus, it has been one of the great achievements of 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 159 

modern science to demonstrate the universal prevalence of 
law — that it extends where the uninstructed mind sees only 
caprice or supernatural agency — that it regulates not only 
the motions of the j)lanets, the succession of the seasons, 
and the tidal vibrations of the ocean, but every fitful 
breeze, every forming cloud, and every falling shower. 
Yea, even 

11 The very law that moulds a tear, 

And makes it trickle from its source, 
That law preserves the globe a sphere, 
And guides the planets in their course." 

This is also the doctrine of the Bible. It knows nothing 
of fortuitous occurrences, but everywhere asserts the do- 
minion of invariable, natural law, extending to things ani- 
mate and inanimate, the heavens and the earth. It teaches 
us that according to the ordinances which God has estab- 
lished, there is a decree for the rain and a way for the 
thunder flash — the sea " passeth not " its bounds and the 
earth abideth forever — the sun serveth for a light by day, 
and the moon and the stars for a light by night. Seed time 
and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, 
and day and night, do not cease. The hawk is said to " fly 
by his wisdom ; the eagle mounteth up at his command, 
and maketh her nest on high, from whence she seeketh her 
prey, and her eyes behold it afar off." " The stork in the 
heavens knoweth her appointed times ; and the turtle, the 
crane and the swallow observe the times of their coming." 
"Forever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven. Thou 
hast established the earth and it abideth. They continue 
this day according to thine ordinance ; for all are thy ser- 
vants." While, however, atheistic philosophers have en- 
deavored to deduce an argument from the uniform processes 
of nature against the possibility of supernatural interference, 
as if " the laws of nature" were an inexorable chain of 
adamant (an inference, which, as we have seen, both As- 



160 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

tronomy and Geology disprove), the Bible accords with 
the discoveries of science in ascribing immutability to the 
Mind of Him who constituted the natural order of things 
and not to that order itself. " God," says Sir Isaac New- 
ton, " acteth in what is called nature according to accurate 
and uniform laws, except when it be good for Him to act 
otherwise." And the Bible teaches us : " He doeth what- 
soever pleaseth him in heaven and in earth, in the sea and 
in all deep places." It was not by the blind operation of 
mere lifeless laws that this glorious universe sprang into 
being, nor is it by them alone that it is still upheld. There 
is a wise and beauteous order of cause and effect, a law 
whose "voice is the harmony of the world, and to which all 
things in heaven and earth do homage," but " her seat is 
the bosom of God." The highest link of the golden chain 
is in his hand. "Tell me not," says an eloquent writer, 1 
" of forces centripetal and forces centrifugal — tell me not 
of gravitation holding the invisible reins by which the un- 
resting steeds of the sky are by strong curb restrained 
within appointed bounds, and compelled to keep their path ; 
will these forces account for the first propulsion ? Who at 
the beginning launched forth those stupendous orbs ? Who 
impressed on them that primeval force ? Who gave them 
their first direction ? Who weighed them in scales, regu- 
lating their orbit and their speed? And who ordained 
these relationships between the various forces of nature, so 
that the tendency to rush to the centre might be so coun- 
terpoised by the impulse to rush from the circumference, 
that a steady motion along the same path is the result ? 
By whose arrangement and upholding power is it that we 
never dread the moon dashing against the earth, the earth 
hastening to terrible collision with the sun, the planets 
rushing madly through space, and the sky becoming thus a 
vast battle field, strewn with the fragments of stars and 
satellites ? 

1 Rev. Newman Hall. 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 161 

" Have ye not known — hath it not been told you from 
the beginning — have ye not understood from the founda- 
tion of the earth ? It is He who sitteth upon the circle of 
the earth, and the inhabitants of the earth are as grasshop- 
pers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and 
spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in. Lift up your 
eyes on high, and behold who hath created all these things, 
that bringeth out their host by number ? It is He who 
meted out the heavens with a span, and comprehended the 
dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains 
in scales and the hills in a balance. It is He who stretcheth 
out the North over the empty place, and hangeth the 
earth upon nothing. By His Spirit He hath garnished the 
heavens. He telleth the number of the stars, He calleth 
them all by their names. He commandeth the sun, and it 
riseth not, and sealeth up the stars. He bindeth the sweet 
influences of Pleiades, and looseth the bands of Orion. He 
bringeth forth Mazzaroth in his season, and guideth Arctu- 
rus with his sons. Lo ! these are but a part of His ways, 
but the thunder of His power who can understand?" 

By the aid of geologic discovery, Science has proved 
that in addition to those unvarying physical laws, by which 
in accordance with a wise and benevolent arrangement 
Uniformity is preserved in the present system of things, 
there is also a higher law of progress and development. 
The " testimony of the rocks " has taught us that through 
the unmeasured ages of the past, the mineral, vegetable, 
and animal kingdoms of nature have exhibited continually 
fresh manifestations of creative power, wisdom, and good- 
ness. " From the lowly seaweeds of the silurian strata and 
marsh plants of the old red sandstone, we rise (speaking in 
general terms) to the prolific club mosses, reeds, ferns, and 
gigantic endogens of the coal measures ; from these to the 
exagons or true timber trees of the tertiary and current 
eras. So also in the animal kiDgdom ; the graptolites and 



162 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

trilobites of the silurian seas are succeeded by the higher 
Crustacea and bone-clad fishes of the coal measures ; the 
sauroid fishes by the gigantic saurians and reptiles of the 
oolite ; the reptiles of the oolite by the huge mammalia of 
the tertiary epoch ; and these in time give place to exist- 
ing species, with man as the crowning form of created ex- 
istence." 1 

At the very commencement of the Bible (as has in effect 
been already shown) we have this identical principle em- 
bodied in the gradual elaboration ot all things in the six 
creative days or periods, rising from the formless void of 
the beginning, through successive stages of inorganic or 
organic being up to man. This culmination reached, how- 
ever, the process was arrested by that fatal act which broke 
the harmony of creation — when 

" Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat 
Sighing through all her works gave signs of woe, 
That all was lost." 

The golden link was then broken which bound man and all 
the lower creatures with Him to the throne of God. Here 
Science fails us, and unaided by revelation is unable even 
to read the traces which the moral ruin of our race has 
stamped upon the face of nature. And of the developments 
of the Creator's boundless and inexhaustible resources to be 
unfolded in the future, she can tell us nothing. The uni- 
form confession of her votaries is that, respecting these, it 
were vain to offer the wildest conjecture. 

" Reason's spell might not disclose 

The gracious birth to come." 

But here Revelation comes to our aid and teaches us 
that " the whole creation groaneth and travaileth " in hope 
of a glorious regeneration. It teaches us that the broken 
link has been restored and the unending progression is to 

1 Advanced Text Book of Geology, by David Page, F.Gr.S. 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 163 

be resumed. This is finely shown in the Hulsean Lectures 
of Dean Trench : " The Heaven which had disappeared 
from the earth since the third chapter of Genesis, reappears 
again in visible manifestation, in the latest chapters of the 
Revelation. The tree of life, whereof there were but faint 
reminiscences in all the intermediate time, again stands by 
the river of the water of life, and again there is no more 
curse. Even the very differences of the forms under which 
the heavenly kingdom reappears are deeply characteristic, 
marking as they do, not merely all that is won back, but won 
back in a more glorious shape than that in which it was 
lost, because won back in the Son. It is no longer Paradise, 
but the New Jerusalem — no longer the garde?i, but now 
the city of God, which is on earth. The change is full of 
meaning ; no longer the garden, free, spontaneous and un- 
labored, even as man's blessedness in the state of a first in- 
nocence would have been ; but the city, costlier indeed, 
more stately, more glorious, but at the same time, the result 
of toil, of labor, of pains — reared into a nobler and more 
abiding habitation, yet with stones which, after the pattern 
of the " elect corner stone," were each in its time laborious- 
ly hewn and painfully squared for the places which they 
fill." Such the prospect to which the eye of faith looks 

forward, 

— " At return of Him, the Woman's Seed, 
Last in the clouds, from heaven to be revealed 
In glory of the Father, to dissolve 
Satan with his perverted world, then raise 
From the conflagrant mass, purged and refined, 
New heavens, new earth, ages of endless date, 
Founded in righteousness, and peace, and love, 
To bring forth fruits, joy, and eternal bliss." 

Modern science has delighted to unfold the wonderful 
adaptation of natural laws and objects to each other, to the 
happiness of the animal creation and to the use and service 
of man. Everything, it has been shown, serves an end. 



164 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

Throughout the animal and vegetable kingdoms, there is a 
wonderful series of special adjustments irresistibly sugges- 
tive of a designing, infinite Intelligence. Thus the atmos- 
phere is essential to the respiration, without which no indi- 
vidual of either kingdom can prolong its life. It furnishes 
oxygen to animals, carbon to vegetables. Had it been 
constituted of other gases, neither kingdom could have 
existed. It is also the vehicle for the conveyance of water 
from the ocean to the land. For the earth to receive its 
supply of rain, it is necessary that the water rise in vapor 
from the ocean as well as from the land, be diffused over 
the surface of the continents, and again descend from the 
atmosphere in its liquid condition. The tendency of water 
to constant evaporation supplies the air with moisture. 
The variations of temperature and of electrical condition 
again condense the vapor and precipitate it in the form of 
rain or dew. These and numberless other arrangements 
and adaptations are not only exquisitely contrived in them- 
selves, but serve to make the earth a fitting habitation for 
man. This deduction of science is a principle entirely famil- 
iar to the inspired writers. While they recognize God as 
the great end of all things, by whom and for whose pleasure 
they are and were created, they fail not to point out the 
subordinate purposes of wisdom and benevolence which 
they subserve. They tell us that the tempest is ordered 
and the clouds arranged by wisdom, to give water to the 
wilderness where no man is, to cause the bud of the tender 
herb to shoot forth. They tell us how perfectly God has 
fitted the various animal tribes to their several localities. 
And finally they represent man as the chief created being 
for whom this earth has been prepared and designed. To 
" replenish the earth and subdue it " was the commission 
with which he was invested in the hour of his creation. In 
these words we have another instance of the expansive 
power of the language of the Bible which has already been 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 165 

illustrated. Their full import could not be understood, 
until the facts respecting man and nature to which they 
refer were brought to light. "What the earth is, and 
what man is — that the one is a compact globe under the 
dominion of uniform laws, and that the other, by his pow- 
ers, mental and physical, his capacity of knowledge, inven- 
tion, construction and execution, is equal to the task of ex- 
ploring and understanding the material world, and of mas- 
tering and transforming its various substances and forces 
from their natural employments to the service of his own 
superior nature — are facts that could not even be thought 
of till they were brought before our eyes. Now, however, 
man's conquests have been carried so far, that society has 
become aw T are of the end to which all the separate lines of 
progress are steadily tending. The prophecy of Moses is 
fulfilling ; man is subduing the earth ; the earth is placing 
herself under the feet of man. What the great Hebrew 
saw afar off, from that mount of God to which he was lifted 
up three thousand years ago, is present with us and plain 
to our senses. Restored by the second Adam to the powers 
lost and the rights forfeited by the first, the human race is 
taking possession of the dominion given to it by God in 
Paradise. This is the end to which all science and all art, 
all the labor and all the thought of men in all ages and in 
all places, have been, and are still steadily and unconscious- 
ly contributing ; the predicted end, toward the achieve- 
ment of which not the least efficient laborers have been 
some of those very sons of science, who have laughed to 
scorn both the prophet and his inspirer." 1 

Another principle, the truth and importance of which 
have but recently been distinctly recognized by the philo- 
sophic student of nature, though in all ages it has more or 
less dimly dawned upon the minds of profound thinkers, is 
the law of type or pattern. It is now understood that as 
i " Nuggets from the Oldest Diggings." Edinburgh. Constable & Co. 



166 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

in the production of human works of design, the skilful 
artist keeps in view some pattern, style or order, according 
to which the whole is arranged, and the mutual relation of 
the parts adjusted, so is it in the works of the Almighty. 
In the kingdoms of vegetable and animal nature, we find 
the same idea exhibited and carried out. Numerous as are 
their orders and varieties, there are a few leading types of 
structure, under which they may all be arranged. Thus in 
respect to the vertebrate skeleton, or the bony framework 
of all that class of animal forms that have a backbone, as 
distinguished from shell fish and the other creatures where 
the hard skeleton surrounds the fleshy and soft parts, it has 
been shown that all these animals, from the fish and reptile 
up to man, are made on one pattern, varied to suit their 
different peculiarities ; and that a fundamental or general 
skeleton can be assigned as a point of departure for the 
whole. Man, the highest of the vertebrates, is thus the 
archetype representing and including all the lower and 
earlier members of the vertebrate type. "All his parts 
and organs," says Professor Owen, " had been already 
sketched -out in anticipation in the inferior animals," a phil- 
osophic deduction which strikingly illustrates the declara- 
tion of the inspired Psalmist : " In thy book were all my 
members written, which in continuance were fashioned, 
when, as yet, there were none of them." This great prin- 
ciple is, moreover, plainly implied and illustrated in the 
whole order of creation, as set forth in the first chapter of 
Genesis, where we have specific type in the production of 
plants and animals after their kinds or species, each rising 
step a prophecy of something nobler yet to come. As 
thence deduced, it has been thus expressed by Coleridge, 
and embellished with the felicitous touches of genius: "Let 
us carry ourselves back in spirit to the mysterious week, 
to the teeming work-days of the Creator ; as they rose in 
vision before the eye of the inspired historian of ' the gen- 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 167 

erations of the heavens and the earth, in the days that the 
Lord God made the earth and the heavens.' And who 
that hath watched their ways with an understanding heart, 
could contemplate the filial and loyal bee : the home-build- 
ing, wedded and divorceless swallow; and above all, the 
manifoldly intelligent ant tribes, with their commonwealths 
and confederacies, their warriors and miners, the husband- 
folk that fold in their tiny flocks on the honeyed leaf, and 
the virgin sisters with the holy instincts of maternal love, 
detached, and in selfless purity, and not say to himself, Behold 
the shadow of approaching humanity, the sun arising from 
behind, in the kindling morn of the creation ! " 1 As the glo- 
ries of that morn unfold, there arises from under the Divine 
hand, and stands erect, a being formed in the very image 
of the Creator, in whom all those mute prophecies that had 
gone before found a wondrous fulfilment. 
"From harmony to hannony, 
Through all the compass of the notes it ran, 
The diapason closing full in Man." — Dryden. 

But when man being in honor abode not in it — when 
the image of God was defaced and broken, and creation's 
crown fallen dishonored to the dust, what then can Science 
teach us? Here, again the Bible comes to our aid and 
directs our thoughts to a far more glorious ideal of human- 
ity. Not only does it harmonize with the teaching of 
Science, that before the creation of the first man, all nature 
was preconfigured to him and a mute prophecy of what 
he would be, but where Science can teach us nothing, it 
introduces us into a new world of wonders. It teaches us 
how "from the time of the Fall everything symbolized 
and supposed the coming of the second man. Everything 
assumed a position "pointing, preconfigured to him. The 
first sinner himself; why is he not destroyed ? why kept in 
being? Another Adam is coming to expiate the guilt 
1 Coleridge's Aids to Reflection. Aph. xxxvi. 



168 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE, 

and remedy the evil. His sinful posterity — I see them 
rapidly increase in numbers, but more rapidly in guilt ; 
why, when punishment overtakes them, is it always arrest- 
ed in its course, always partial in its infliction ? A second 
man is on the way to endure and exhaust it for them. 
Sinai is kindled and the law proclaimed ; but why is this, 
when man has made himself notorious chiefly as its trans- 
gressor ? Another is expected to fulfil it. I pass into the 
land of Canaan and find it cleared of its ancient heathen- 
ism, and planted over with types and symbols ; who is to 
be the anti-type of all these figures, the substance of all 
these shadows ? I pass into the temple, but everything I 
see is pointing to the future ; here is an altar, but where is 
the sacrifice? for 'the blood of bulls and goats cannot 
take away sin ; ' here is a sanctuary, but the entrance is 
closed, the veil is down ; and worshippers, but they are all 
in the attitude of unsatisfied expectation. And here on 
Zion is an empty throne. Everything appears unfinished 
and waiting." 1 " Far off His coming shone " through a 
long processional train of objects and events and typical 
persons like Moses and David and the high priests of Israel, 
until in the fulness of time, " God sent forth his Son," in 
the form of God and equal with God, and yet " found in 
fashion as a man," in the " body which had been prepared 
for him," the glorious Archetype of redeemed humanity. 
" The first man is of the earth earthy ; the second man is 
the Lord from heaven." And have we not here more than 
an intimation that the unity of the Divine plan which Science 
teaches us has been preserved through the remote ages 
past, will remain unbroken in the future, though carried 
out to a more glorious ideal ? " The advent of man, simply 
as such, was the great event prefigured during the old 
geologic ages. The advent of that divine man, i who hath 
abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light,' 

a " The Second Adam," by Dr. John Harris. 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 169 

was the great event prefigured during the historic ages. 
It is these two grand events, equally portions of one sublime 
scheme, originated when God took couusel with himself in 
the depths of eternity, that bind together past, present, and 
future — the geologic with the Patriarchal, the Mosaic, and 
the Christian ages, and altogether with that new heavens 
and new earth, the last of many creations, in which there 
shall be no more death nor curse, but the throne of God 
and the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants shall serve 
Him." ' 

" But still in One, whose soul, aloof from wrong, 
Was filFd with earnest unpolluted good, 
Resounds thy voice an undiscordant song, 
And tells Thy will as at the first it stood. 

11 Thy word fulfill'd was He, forever shown, 
To man the living Archetype of Life, 
In whose embodied light our spirits own 

A certain hope — a rest secure from strife." — Sterling. 

The examination we have thus given has, we trust, made 
it clear that, as it respects physical science, Revelation 
has no reason to fear the light ; but that, on the contrary, 
the brilliant trophies which the human mind in these recent 
ages has won from the outward world, have been triumphs 
for the Bible. Has Astronomy been invoked to aid in its 
overthrow ? The very stars in their courses have fought 
against the infidel attempt. Has Geology been summoned 
to enter the field against it ? The earth has literally " dis- 
closed her dead " to attest the truth, of Moses, and to silence 
the cavil of the rationalist who would banish the Creator 
from his works. In every instance where they have come 
in contact, God's works have verified his word. 

Apart from the hopes with which that Word inspires 
the believing heart, of what permanent value are the 
splendid achievements of science to man ? Viewed in the 

» Testimony of the Rocks, p. 216. 
8 



170 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

light of his threescore years and ten, are they not almost 
as evanescent as the palace of the Arabian enchanter? 
And how utterly do they fail to meet the yearning wants 
of the soul ! They cannot soothe a troubled conscience, or 
lift the burden of remorse from an aching heart. Truly 
has the world's favorite poet said that 

" Knowledge is not happiness ; and science 
But an exchange of ignorance for that 
Which is another kind of ignorance." — Manfked. 

" Thousands of years ago, as one of the most ancient of 
the holy writings tells us, the question was asked : ' Where 
shall wisdom be found ? and where is the place of under- 
standing?' and in many works that have been written 
since, men have tried in one way or another to answer it. 
The thoughtful patriarch who proposed* it, sought in vain 
from all the wisdom and knowledge of his time a reply 
that would give peace to his restless spirit. And if we 
turn to the more mature science of our own day, and re- 
peat the question: Whence then cometh wisdom, and 
where is the place of understanding ? what is the answer ? 
Even as it was ages ago. The geologist drills and bores 
through stratum after stratum, and digs and delves far 
' deeper than plummet ever sounded,' only to return and 
tell that ' the Depth saith, It is not in me.' The voyager 
covers the sea with ships. With sail, and paddle-wheel, 
and Archimedes' screw, they speed north and south, and 
east and west, and round about the pendent globe. Many 
run to and fro, and knowledge increases. What the foam- 
crested waves will not tell, the abyss may reveal ; and with 
net, and dredge, and diving-bell, the 'dark unfathomed 
caves of ocean ' are searched through, and gazed into, and 
' gems of purest ray,' and monsters who never saw the sun, 
are brought into the ' light of common day.' But, above 
all the stir and strife of man's endeavor, the murmuring 



FHYSICAL SCIENCE. 171 

billows lift their voices, and ' the Sea saith, It is not with 
me.' The chemist gathers together every object which 
has shape, or weight, or volume, living or dead, and with 
fire, and furnace, and potent agent, and electric battery, 
tests and assays it. But when ' victorious analysis' has 
done its best, he replies, ' It cannot be valued with the 
gold of Ophir, with the precious onyx or the sapphire. 
The gold and the crystal cannot equal it. The price of 
wisdom is above rubies.' The naturalist wanders through 
the pathless forests of far distant lands, and with pain and 
toil grows familiar with the habits of everything that lives ; 
but after he has gone the round of all creation in search 
of wisdom, he answers with mournful aspect, ' It is hid 
from the eyes of all living, and kept secret from the fowls 
of the air.' The anatomist makes the writhing animal 
agonize under his torturing hand, and slays it, that per- 
chance in the page of death the mystery of life and of wis- 
dom may be found written ; but he will venture in reply 
to say no more than that ; Destruction and Death say, We 
have heard the sound thereof with our ears.' 

" But while all the oracles of science are silent on this 
great question, lo ! through the thick darkness a ray of 
light descends, and a voice, solemn but benignant, pro- 
claims to us as it did to the first anxious seeker after Truth, 
i The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom ; and to depart from 
evil is understanding.' ' 

" To have my understanding opened to my own nature, 
origin, and destiny ; to know that I am alien from perfect 
good ; to tremble before the consequences of such an alien- 
ation ; but at the same time to have arrived at a clear con- 
viction of the immortal properties of that accursed and 
self-accusing spirit — this is knowledge, this is truth. To 
have brought home to my understanding and more to my 
heart, that this perfect good which alone is God, has been 

1 British Quarterly Review. 



172 TESTIMONY OP SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

reconciled in the mysterious process of assuming and sacri- 
ficing itself for the imperfect and spotted nature that is 
within me, — this is love ; finite indeed, but responding to 
infinite love ; and what is truth and love together, but the 
religion of the cross ? The lowliest of the sons of men is 
capable of this ; the burning seraph of no more. All other 
science — the science of this earth — must pale before it, 
because all else may die ; this never. Those brilliant fires 
which light up yonder sky, and utter mystic music revolv- 
ing in their spheres, as day unto day uttereth speech and 
night unto night showeth knowledge, shall, in the progress 
of ages vanish and be stricken from the creation of God. 
With them this globe, and all that is material, must one 
day be dissolved. Where then shall live the science born 
of matter and of earth ? That only portion will remain, 
which has so operated on the immortal mind in this por- 
tion of its existence, as to prepare and fit it for a better, 
happier, and endless state beyond the grave." ' 

" Welcome, dear book, soul's Joy and food ! The feast 
Of Spirits ; Heav'n extmcted lyes in thee, 
Thou art life's Charter, the Dove's spotless nest 
Where souls are hatch'd unto Eternitie. 

4< In thee the hidden stone, the Manna lies ; 
Thou art the great Elixir rare and Choice ; 
The Key that opens to all Mysteries, 

The Word in Characters, God in the Voice." 

Henry Vaughan. 

i Lecture on Science and Religion, by Rev. H. M. Mason, D.D. 



CHAPTEK IY. 

THE UNITY OF THE mJMAN RACE. 

Ix passing from the Physical to the Historical sciences, 
our attention is naturally first arrested by if subject which 
is related perhaps equally to both, and which has of late 
years been the source of the most persistent assaults against 
the Bible. 

The peculiarities of form and color which are now found 
among the different human races, are irreconcilable, it has 
been alleged, with the identity of ancestral origin claimed 
by Moses for all the tribes and families of men. Instead 
of a common descent from a single pair, it has been argued 
from scientific considerations, that several pairs of human 
creatures were either created by Almighty power, or came 
up into humanity' from some lower order of being ; and 
that from these, occupying different localities from one an- 
other on the earth's surface, must the diverse races of man- 
kind have descended. " The negro at least " (we are told) 
" is a distinct race, and must have had a separate origin. 
Negroes cannot have sprung from the same stock as the 
white man ! " A celebrated Professor of Natural History 
remarks: "Men were primitively located in the various 
parts of the world they inhabit, and they arose everywhere 
m those harmonious proportions with other living beings, 
which would at once secure their preservation, and con- 
tribute to their welfare." He also affirms that the Bible 
professes to give "the history of the Jews;" and by a 



174 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

strange oversight, ventures to assert that "nowhere the 
colored races, as such, are even alluded to ; " while he chal- 
lenges those who maintain that mankind originated from a 
single pair, to " quote a single passage in the whole Scrip- 
tures, pointing at those physical differences, which may be 
adduced as evidence that the sacred writers regarded them 
as descended from a common stock." 

Could these startling assertions be substantiated, a fatal 
blow would be struck at the authority of the Scriptures. 
If they are true, the whole of the Bible history must be 
surrendered. They would destroy the brotherhood of man, 
and thereby render worthless the inspired account of his 
ruin and remedy. They would falsify the Bible explanation 
of the entrance of sin and death and deny the universality 
of that atonement, which proclaims that " as in Adam all 
die, so in Christ shall all be made alive." 

But, fortunately, the greater weight of scientific author- 
ity is still on the side of the Bible, while, from unexpected 
sources, strongly corroborative testimony has been obtained. 

We know from an investigation of the laws of nature, 
and from the anatomy and physiology of the human frame, 
that all the varieties of the race, numerous as they are, 
possess the same physical properties. In the structure of 
his body, and in the physical organization which distinguish 
him from every other species of animals, man is the same 
being in China and South America, on the shores of the 
Polar Sea, and on the burning sands of Africa. " Change 
his condition ; transplant him from his natural soil and 
climate ; take him in the wilds of the forest, or under the 
culture of civilized and polished life ; and he has every- 
where the characteristics which designate the same species. 
These characteristics are obvious, striking and permanent, 
even to the number of teeth and bones, the number and 
arrangement of the muscles, and the digestive, circulatory, 
secretory, and respiratory organs. There is no difference in 



THE UNITY OF THE HUMAN RACE. 175 

these particulars which has as yet been detected among the 
different races ; there is the same uniformity in the white 
and the black, the Mongolian, the Malay, and the Ameri- 
can. They are all omnivorous, and capable of living on all 
kinds of food, and of inhabiting all climates ; while all have 
the same period of gestation, the same slow growth, are 
subject to the same diseases, possess the same average lon- 
gevity, and in every shade of amalgamation, produce a 
fertile offspring." 

And not only is there this physical identity ; but the 
moral and intellectual constitution of the different races is 
everywhere the same. Whether we search the page of 
history sacred or profane, back to* the remotest times, or 
traverse countries savage or civilized, heathen or Christian, 
to the ends of the earth ; though in different degrees of 
development and cultivation, we ever find the same won- 
drous capacities, the same universal lineaments of the human 
soul, which distinguish man from the beasts that perish. 

By collection of numerous interesting facts illustrating 
this remarkable uniformity in the conditions of species 
which is to be found in all the tribes and races of mankind, 
under all the peculiarities and varieties of form and color, 
Dr. Prichard, in his great work on the Natural History of 
Man, has constructed a powerful and conclusive argument 
for the derivation of the whole human species from one stock. 
If the unity of the race is not to be made out genealogically, 
because profane history does not ascend so high as to meet 
the historical narrative of Moses, in reference to Gentile 
nations, he demonstrates that unity by the fact that it is 
essential to the nature of man. Agreeing with Buffon and 
Cuvier, to define species as " a constant succession of indi- 
viduals capable of reproducing each other," he goes on to 
prove that there is a law, prevailing alike in the vegetable 
and animal creation, which renders the perpetuation of 
hybrids, so as to produce new and intermediate species, im- 



176 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

possible. The facts adduced lead, with the strongest force 
of analogical reasoning, to the conclusion that, as the various 
tribes of men may, by intermarriage, perpetuate their race, 
they belong to the same species. Additional light is thrown 
on the subject by his careful analysis of collected evidence 
on the nature and origin of varieties. In answer to the 
great question, How could such various nations and tribes 
as are now existing among men, have all sprung from the 
same stock, he proves by an inductive appeal to facts, that 
sporadic or accidental varieties may arise in one race, tend- 
ing to produce in it the characteristics of another ; that these 
varieties^may be perpetuated ; and that food, climate, em- 
ployment and other secondary causes, account for the 
existing varieties of the human race and for the perpetua- 
tion of those varieties. And he comes to the conclusion, 
that there are no permanent lines of demarcation separating 
the different tribes or nations ; that there is scarcely an in- 
stance in which the actual transition cannot be proven to 
have taken place ; and that there is every reason to infer, 
quite irrespectively of the Scripture testimony, that all the 
families of the earth are descended from common parents, 
and that at no very distant period. 

No fact of science can, indeed, be considered as more 
certain, than that man, and not only man, but the inferior 
animals, acquire certain changes of color, hair and form, 
when removed from one climate or locality to another, or 
when subjected to any great change in manner or habits of 
life. " Whether," says another writer, " the external con^ 
dition of these changes be the chemical solar rays ; the alti- 
tude or depression of the general level ; the difference of 
geological formations ; the varying agencies of magnetism 
and electricity ; atmospheric peculiarities ; miasmatic ex- 
halations from vegetable or mineral matter ; difference of 
soils ; proximity to the ocean ; variety of food, habits of 
life and exposure — all of which perhaps at times come in 



THE UNITY OF THE HUMAN RACE, 177 

play — or other causes yet more occult ; there can be no 
question about the fact that such causes are at work. The 
general fact is, that when the other physical conditions are 
the same, tribes living nearest the' equator, and level of the 
sea, are marked with the darkest skin and the crispest hair. 
Thus, we make a gradual ascent from the jetty negro of the 
line to the olive-colored Arab, the brown Moor, the swarthy 
Italian, the dusky Spaniard, the dark-skinned Frenchman, 
the ruddy Englishman, and the pallid Scandinavian." In 
regard to the duration or permanence of these varieties, it 
appears to be a general fact that when once acquired, they 
are transmitted through successive generations, " under the 
influence of the law of assimilation between parent and off- 
spring, even though the causes which originally determined 
the variation from the original type should have ceased to 
operate." ' 

The following decisive Historical testimony as to the 
effects of climatic and geographical changes, after a long 
continued period, upon the physical constitution of man, is 
given by an eminent writer on Physiology, Dr. W. B. Car- 
penter, as the result of the researches of Prichard, Latham 
and others. He says that " the Magyar race in Hungary, 
which is not now inferior in mental or physical characters 
to any in Europe, is proved by historical and philological 
evidence to have been a branch of the great northern Asiatic 
stock, which was expelled about ten centuries since from 
the country it then inhabited (bordering on the Uralian 
mountains), and in its turn expelled Slavonian nations from 
the fertile parts of Hungary, which it has occupied ever 
since. Having thus exchanged their abode, in the most 
rigorous climate of the old continent — a wilderness in which 
the Ostiaks and Samoiedes pursue the chase during only 
the mildest season — for one in the South of Europe, amid 
fertile plains abounding in rich harvests, the Magyars grad- 
1 Professor Cabell's " Unity of the Human Race." 

Q* 



178 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

nally laid aside the rude and savage habits which they are 
recorded to have brought with them, and adopted a more 
settled mode of life. In the course of a thousand years, 
their type of cranial formation has been changed from the 
pyramidal (or Mongol) 'to the elliptical (or Caucasian) ; and 
they have become a handsome people, with fine stature and 
regular European features, with just enough of the Tartar 
cast of countenance, in some instances, to recall their origin 
to mind. Here it may be said that the intermixture of the 
conquering with the conquered race has had a great share 
in bringing about this change ; but the Magyars pride 
themselves greatly on the purity of their descent ; and the 
small infusion of Slavonic blood which may have taken 
place from time to time, is by no means sufficient to account 
for the complete change of type which now manifests itself. 
The women of pure Magyar race are said by good judges 
to be singularly beautiful, far surpassing either German 
or Slavonian females. A similar modification, but less in 
degree, appears to have taken place among the Finnish 
tribes of Scandinavia. These may be almost certainly 
affirmed to have had the same origin with the Lapps ; but 
whilst the latter retain (although inhabiting Europe) the 
nomadic habits of their Mongolian ancestors, the former 
have adopted a much more settled mode of life, and have 
made considerable advances in civilization. And thus we 
have in the Lapps, Finns and Magyars, three nations or 
tribes, of whose descent from a common stock no reason- 
able doubt can be entertained, and which yet exhibit the 
most marked differences in cranial characters, and also in 
general conformation, the Magyars being tall and well 
made, as the Lapps are short and uncouth." 

The observations of Bishop Heber in India, are in har- 
mony with the above conclusions. That country, he says, 
"has been always, and long before the Europeans came 
hither, a favorite theatre for adventurers from Persia, 



THE UXITY OF THE HUMAN RACE. 179 

Greece, Tartary, Turkey and Arabia, all white men, and 
all in their turn possessing themselves of wealth and power. 
These circumstances must have greatly contributed to make 
a fair complexion fashionable. It is remarkable, however, 
to observe how surely all these classes of men in a few gen- 
erations, even without any intermarriage with the Hindoos, 
assume the deep olive tint, little less dark than a Negro, 
which seems natural to the climate. The Portuguese na- 
tives form unions among themselves alone, or if they can, 
with Europeans. Yet the Portuguese have, during a three 
hundred years' residence in India, become as black as 
Kaffirs. Surely this goes far to disprove the assertion, 
which is sometimes made, that climate alone is insufficient 
to account for the difference between the Negro and the 
European. It is true that in the Negro are other peculi- 
arities which the Indian has not, and to which the Portu- 
guese colonist shows no symptom of approximation, and 
which undoubtedly do not appear to follow so naturally 
from the climate, as that swarthiness of complexion which 
is the sole distinction between the Hindoo and the Euro- 
pean. But if heat produces one change, other peculiarities 
of climate may produce other and additional changes, and 
when such peculiarities have 3,000 or 4,000 years to operate 
in, it is not easy to fix any limits to their power. . . . Thus, 
while hardships, additional exposure, a greater degree of 
heat, and other circumstances with which, we are unac- 
quainted, may have deteriorated the Hindoo into a Negro, 
opposite causes may have changed him into the progres- 
sively lighter tints of the Chinese, the Persian, the Turk, 
the Russian, and the Englishman." 

The researches of travellers in Africa corroborate the 
same view. The Rev. John Campbell, who some years 
ago travelled on a missionary exploring tour several hun- 
dred miles north of the Cape of Good Hope, remarks that 
the complexion of the inhabitants assumed a deeper hue — 



180 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

uniformly becoming darker, till it became quite black as 
he approached the equator. It is also a well ascertained 
fact that there is a colony of Jews at Cochin, upon the 
coast of Malabar, who are now as black as the other Mala- 
barians, who are hardly a shade lighter than the people of 
Guinea, Benin, or Angola. 

That the legitimate deductions of science tend to cor- 
roborate the Scripture doctrine of the unity of the human 
race, w T e have the distinguished authority of Baron Hum- 
boldt. " Whilst attention was exclusively directed to the 
extremes of color and form," says that profound student of 
nature, " the result of the first vivid impressions derived from 
the senses, was a tendency to view these differences as char- 
acteristics, not of mere varieties, but of originally distinct 
species. The permanence of certain types, in the midst of 
the most opposite influences, especially of climate, appeared 
to favor this view, notwithstanding the' shortness of the time 
to which the historical evidence apj)lied ; but, in my opin- 
ion, more powerful reasons lend their weight to the other 
side of the question, and corroborate the unity of the human 
race. I refer to the many intermediate gradations of the 
tint of the skin and the form of the skull, which have been 
made known to us by the rapid progress of geographical 
discoveries in modern times ; to the analogies derived from 
the history of varieties in animals, both domesticated and 
wild ; and to the positive observations collected respecting 
the limits of fertility in hybrids. The greater part of the 
supposed contrasts to which so much weight was formerly 
assigned, have disappeared before the laborious investiga- 
tions of Tiedemann on the brain of negroes and of Euro- 
peans, and the anatomical researches of Vrolik and Weber 
on the form of the pelvis. When we take a general view 
of the dark-colored African nations, on which the work 
of Prichard has thrown so much light, and when we com- 
pare them with the natives of the Australian Islands, and 



THE UNITY OF THE HUMAN EACE. 181 

-with the Papuans and Alfourans, we see that a black tint 
of skin, woolly hair and negro features are by no means 
associated." . . . "Mankind are • therefore distributed in 
varieties, which we are often accustomed to designate by 
the somewhat vague appellation of races." * 

Thus it appears that according to the principles ad- 
mitted by the most eminent physiologists and naturalists, 
whether friendly or not to Christianity and the Bible, there 
is nothing in the natural differe"hces observable between 
different parts of the human race distributed over the 
globe, which is incompatible with the Scripture statement 
which claims for all these parts a common origin. Simple 
diversity within limits hitherto reached cannot be claimed 
as proving an original diversity of races. 

An attempt has been made, however, to evade this 
conclusion. The objectors, under the pressure of the facts 
and arguments brought against their theory, now generally 
admit that notwithstanding the varieties at present exist- 
ing among the several tribes and nations of the earth, all 
races may have sprung from an original stock, if we allow 
a sufficient duration to have elapsed for the causes of 
change in operation to produce such results. But they 
contend that the time in which the earth was repeopled 
after the flood, according to the reckoning of the Bible 
Chronology, falls very far short of meeting the require- 
ments of the case. It is claimed that on the monuments 

1 Humboldt's Cosmos, vol. i, p. 351. As to the value of Dr. Morton's 
observations in support of the theory of original diversity of races, the emi- 
nent philosopher, Sir William Hamilton, makes this observation : " What 
first strikes me in Dr. Morton's Tables, completely invalidates his conclu- 
sions—he has not distinguished male from female crania. Now, as the 
female encephalos is, on an average, some four ounces Troy less than the 
male, it is impossible to compare national skulls with national skulls, in 
respect of their capacity, unless we compare male with male, female with 
female heads, or at least, know how many of either sex go to make up the 
national complement." Extract from Sir W. Hamilton's Lectures on Meta- 
physics. — Appendix ii. (c). 



182 TESTIMONY OP SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

of Egypt there are pictorial delineations of the Negro, 
Egyptian and Asiatic, executed as far back as the age of 
Thothmes III, fifteen centuries before the Christian era, in 
which the peculiarities of race in form, color and hair, are 
as perfectly distinct as they are now. Such marked national 
diversities could not, say the objectors, have been produced 
in so short an interval of time as the 850 years which had 
elapsed between the Deluge and the reign of that monarch, 
supposed to synchronize with the Exodus of the Israelites, 
if all the races had their origin from one man — the patri- 
arch Noah. Nothing short of a miracle, it is urged, could, 
during that time, have effected such a commutation, which 
the subsequent experience of thirty centuries has proven 
to be a physical impossibility. 

This objection has at first sight a formidable appear- 
ance ; but upon examination, the difficulty soon loses its 
dimensions. Let it be granted that a miracle was neces- 
sary to effect the change into different races from one, yet 
who can affirm that the required miracle was not wrought ? 
In the brief record of the earliest times given in Genesis, 
there is a statement by which this very difficulty is met 
and amply provided for. "We are there informed that when 
the descendants of Noah had become sufficiently numerous 
to commence the occupation of the different portions of 
the earth, there was a direct intervention of the Almighty 
to " confound the language " of men, and hence necessitate 
that result. When by supernatural power this change 
was wrought, may not the same agency have been em- 
ployed to effect such diversity in the appearance and struc- 
ture of the different branches of one human family, as to 
adapt them to the diversified localities, climates and con- 
ditions they were destined to occupy ? This is an hypo- 
thesis which can be regarded as untenable, only by those 
who reject the possibility of a miracle, an objection which 
has already been answered. To a believer in Revelation 



THE UNITY OF THE HITMAN RACE. 183 

and the Divine Omnipotence, it satisfactorily accounts for 
all the phenomena presented in the varying races of man- 
kind without doing violence to a single passage or a soli- 
tary word of Holy Writ. 

Yet apart from a Divine intervention to produce this 
'result, there are other considerations which will go far to 
obviate, if they do not entirely remove the difficulty. The 
objection is based upon the presumption that the rate of 
change in man's physical condition, is the same now that it 
was in those early patriarchal ages. But instances are not 
wanting even now of remarkable peculiarities of form and 
structure which have been propagated for several genera- 
tions. It is said that certain reigning families of Europe 
can readily be distinguished by singularities of feature 
which have marked them for centuries. And it is quite 
conceivable that in those primitive times, physiological 
changes might take place much more rapidly than they 
have done since. It must be granted that there is a strik- 
ing contrast in those early paintings appealed to by the 
objectors, between the portraiture of the red Egyptian and 
that of the jet-black Negro, — yet let this be taken with the 
fact that on the borders of the Red Sea tribes are to be 
found constituting a series of links between the two, and 
therefore pointing to a common origin. And if the negro 
be regarded as a wide departure from the Caucasian or 
primitive type of man, it appears to be a law of human 
nature that deterioration should take place much more rap- 
idly than restoration or improvement. Moreover, it has 
been ascertained that color is an uncertain mark of origin 
and descent. The offspring of European and Hindoo pa- 
rents may be either white or colored ; and if the children 
be white, the grandchildren may be colored, showing that 
as it respects the transmission of color, there is an apparent 
want of all law. And although the earth was repeopled by 
the descendants of one man, there were three fathers of the 



184 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

race, and they or their wives may have possessed some of 
those marked features which distinguish their descendants 
— Ham of the African, Japhet of the European, Shem of the 
Asiatic. Noah is not, therefore, the only starting point of 
the renovated world, and national characteristics of form 
and feature may be traced back to the centuries antecedent 
to the deluge. 

But there is an attempt to justify this anti-scriptural 
theory by an appeal to Scripture itself, which demands a 
passing notice. In the fourth chapter of Genesis we read, 
" And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and 

dwelt in the land of Nod and he builded a city 

and called the name of the city after his son Enoch." 
Hence it has been inferred that there must have been men 
to form this city ; whereas now that Abel was dead, Cain 
and his son, as far as Scripture acquaints us, were the sole 
descendants of Adam. Upon this flimsy basis, it has been 
sought to people the land of Nod with descendants of 
another race distinct from Adam, in the face of the plain 
and decisive declarations of the Bible that " Eve was the 
mother of all living," and that " God hath made of one 
blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the 
earth." Yet the slightest acquaintance with Scripture 
should be sufficient to teach us that all the children of 
Adam are not mentioned by name, any more than of the 
patriarchs after him. In Genesis v. 4, we are expressly told 
that Adam " begat sons and daughters ; " but no daughters 
are anywhere named. Between Cain's birth and Abel's 
death, 127 years elapsed, during which interval several sons 
and daughters must have been born to our first parents, 
who in all probability ere its expiration, became the pa- 
rents of many children also. In the " Dissertations " of the 
learned Saurin, there is a calculation which makes it out 
that at the time of the death of Abel (which the writer sup- 
poses to have been in the year of the world 128), there 



THE UNITY OF THE HUMAN RACE. 185 

might have been 32,768 persons, descended from eight 
children of Cain and Abel, born before the year 25 ; and 
that, adding other subsequent children of Cain and Abel, 
their children and children's children, there might have 
been 421,164 men descended from them, without reckoning 
women and children. Yet without implicitly adopting such 
calculations, or in the least transcending the limits of 
probability, it is certain that Cain and Abel may have had 
a considerable number of children and grandchildren at the 
time indicated ; and allowing for other possible children of 
Adam and Eve, there must have been at the time a consid- 
erable number of persons in the world — quite sufficient to 
account for Cain's dread of being slain for the murder of 
Abel ; and also for his building a city so soon after his 
migration from the paternal roof. 

An apparently more formidable objection than any of 
the foregoing to the unity of mankind, is presented by the 
vast inequality of mental endowment and capacity which is 
found in the different human races. It would, perhaps, be 
difficult to place this in a stronger light than has been done 
by Dr. Prichard. He says : " Let us imagine for a moment, 
a stranger from another planet to visit our globe, and to 
contemplate and compare the manners of its inhabitants, 
and let him first witness some brilliant spectacle in one of 
the highly civilized nations of Europe, — the coronation of a 
monarch, the installation of St. Louis on the throne of his 
ancestors, surrounded by an august assembly of peers and 
barons, and mitred abbots, anointed by the cruse of sacred 
oil, brought by an angel to ratify the divine privilege of 
kings ; let the same person be carried into a hamlet of Ne- 
gro land, in the hour when the sable race recreate them- 
selves with dancing and barbarous music ; let him then be 
transported to the saline plains, over which bold and tawny 
Mongols roam, differing but little in hue from the yellow 
soil of their steppes, brightened by the saffron flowers of the 



186 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

tulip and the iris ; let him be placed near the solitary den 
of the Bushman, where the lean and hungry savage crouches 
in silence like the beast of prey, watching with fixed eyes 
the creatures which enter his pitfall, or the insects and rep- 
tiles which chance brings within his grasp ; let the traveller 
be carried into the midst of an Australian forest, where the 
squalid companions of kangaroos may be seen crawling in 
procession, in imitation of quadrupeds ; can it be supposed 
that such a person would conclude the various groups of 
beings whom he had surveyed to be of one nature, one 
tribe, or the offspring of the same original stock ? It is 
much more probable that he would arrive at an opposite 
conclusion." 

The contrasts, however, which are apparently so irre- 
concilable with unity of origin, lie no deeper than the sur- 
face. The learned author proceeds to show at length how 
much more cogent and convincing is the proof, that " the 
mind is the same in different countries and in different 
races of men." 

The result of his examination is thus expressed : " We 
contemplate among all the diversified tribes, who are en- 
dowed with reason and speech, the same internal feelings, 
appetencies, aversions ; the same inward convictions, the 
same sentiments of subjection to invisible powers, and, 
more or less fully developed, of accountableness or respon- 
sibility to unseen avengers of wrong and agents of retribu- 
tive justice, from whose tribunal men cannot even by death 
escape. We find everywhere the same susceptibility, 
though not always in the same degree of forwardness or 
ripeness of improvement, of admitting the cultivation of 
these universal endowments, of opening the eyes of the 
mind to the same clear and luminous views which Chris- 
tianity unfolds, of becoming moulded to the institutions 
of religion, and of civilized life ; in a word, the same inward 
and mental nature is to be recognized in all the races of 



THE UNITY OF THE HUMAN EACE. 187 

men." " In the busy cities of Europe, with all their rest- 
less competitions ; then across the Atlantic, where the 
haunts of wandering Indians have grown, with a rapidity 
that startles the mind, into busy toAvns and far-spreading 
villages of peaceful industry ; amid the sunny isles of the 
Pacific, where the beauty of the Creator's works has stood 
in strange contrast with the ferocity of man ; in the throb- 
bing heart of populous Africa ; in the hold of yonder slave- 
ship, and in the breasts of the unhappy beings which it 
bears ruthlessly away from liberty and home, — in each and 
all, is there not the same wondrous constitution, — the same 
sensitive frame, — the same feeling soul ? Savage or civil- 
ized, heathen or Christian, the universal lineaments are not 
to be mistaken ; it still is — man ! " When we compare this 
fact with the established identity of specific instincts and 
physical endowments of all the distinct tribes of mankind, 
how can we resist the conclusion, that all human races are 
of one species and of one family ? 

Another argument for the unity of the human race is 
to be found in a source of evidence, which was formerly 
claimed by the sceptic as militating strongly against it — 
viz., the great diversities of language which prevail among 
the different nations of the globe. The opponents of reve- 
lation have asserted that the variety of languages is so 
great, and their differences of character so wide, and 
history is so far from furnishing any example of even one 
new language, that it is inconceivable that mankind could 
ever have spoken only one tongue ; and they deny that 
" the fable " (as they term it), of the dispersion on the 
plains of Shinar is sufficient to explain the endless and wide 
variations which at present prevail. The problem here 
presented was far more difficult of solution than any ques- 
tions pertaining to Ethnology proper or descriptive. At 
first sight it would seem impossible, out of the apparent 
chaos, to bring anything to rebut the objection. The sub- 



188 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

ject has, however, received the attention of the most emi- 
nent philologists, and the result of their labors has been a 
new science, Comparative Philology, the principles of which 
are in every respect accordant with the statements of the 
Bible. The discoveries made in this direction have, in- 
deed, been among the most remarkable of the present age. 
It was soon found, to the surprise of those who had entered 
upon the investigation, that languages grouped themselves 
into families, and that there were so many affinities and re- 
semblances among all of them, that there was a strong 
possibility at least of a common origin. Referring to the 
conclusions of Humboldt, Klaproth, Schlegel, Mebuhr, 
Balbi, Pott, Adelung and Vater, Dr. Wiseman observes : 
" It was found that the Teutonic dialects received consid- 
erable light from the language of Persia ; that Latin had 
remarkable points of contact with Russian and the other 
Sclavonic idioms ; and that the theory of the Greek verbs 
in mi could not be well understood without recourse to 
their parallels in Sanscrit or Hindoo Grammar. It was 
demonstrated that one great speech, essentially so called, 
pervaded a considerable portisn of Europe and Asia, and 
stretching across in a broad sweep from Ceylon to Iceland, 
united in a bond of language nations possessing the most 
dissimilar institutions, and bearing but a slight resemblance 
in physiognomy and color. This family has received the 
name of Indo Germanic, or Indo European. Its great 
members are the Sanscrit and Persian, ancient and modern ; 
Teutonic with its various dialects ; Sclavonian, Greek and 
Latin, accompanied by numerous derivatives ; and to these 
must now be added the Celtic dialects." Further research- 
es have not only confirmed these conclusions,' but have 
disclosed wider coincidences. And the crowning result 
has been that the learned Klaproth, one of the greatest 
of modern philologists, says, with a confidence which his 
vast attainments will excuse and justify, that he flatters 



THE UXITY OP THE HUilxiN KACE. 189 

himself that " in his -works, the universal affinity of lan- 
guages is placed in so strong a light, that it must be 
considered as completely demonstrated." " This," he adds, 
" does not appear explicable on any other hypothesis than 
that of Jfflmilting fragments of a primary language yet 
to exist." " It is only out of the tombs of dead languages 
that new languages arise, like new towns, built on the ruins 
of ancient cities. The bricks with which the modern city 
of Baghdad is built on the borders of the Tigris, bear all, 
as Colonel Rawlinson tells us, the cuneiform legend of Ne- 
buchadnezzar, stamped upon them, for they had been taken 
from the ruins of ancient cities built by this Assyrian mon- 
arch. In the same way, if we examine the structure of 
modern dialects, we shall find that each word bears still 
the unmistakable stamp of an older language whose de- 
cayed fragments have furnished the materials for a new 
structure." 

The result to which the discoveries of Comparative 
Philology point, is thus forcibly stated by one of its most 
eminent and successful investigators, Dr. Max Muller : 
"The evidence of language is irrefragable, and it is the 
only evidence worth' listening to, with regard to ante-his- 
torical periods. It would have been next to impossible to 
discover any traces of relationship between the swarthy 
nations of India and their conquerors, whether Alexander 
or Clive, but for the testimony borne by language. What 
authority would have been strong enough to persuade the 
Grecian army that their gods and hero ancestors were the 
same as those of King Porus, or to convince the English 
soldier that the same dark blood was running in his veins 
and in those of the dark Bengalee ? And yet there is not 
an English jury nowadays which, after examining the 
hoary documents of language, would reject the claim of a 
common descent and a legitimate relationship between 
Hindu, Greek and Teuton. Many words still live m India 



190 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

and in England that have witnessed the first separation of 
the northern and southern members of the Arian family ; 
and these are witnesses not to be shaken by any cross- 
examination. The terms for God, for house, for father, 
mother, son, daughter, for dog and cow, for ifeart and 
tears, for axe and tree — identical in all the European 
idioms — are like the watch-words of soldiers. We chal- 
lenge the seeming stranger ; and whether he answer with 
the lips of a Greek, a German, or an Indian, we recognize 
him as one of ourselves. Though the historian may shake 
his head, though the physiologist may doubt, and the poet 
scorn the idea, all must yield before the fact furnished by 
language." 

Thus as the " testimony of the rocks " has verified the 
statements of revelation, so have the " fossil remains " of 
the different languages of the earth been found to bear 
witness to the common origin of the nations speaking 
them. For when it is considered that according to the 
laws of combination, millions of chances lie against the ap- 
plication of a few similar unexceptionable words in different 
languages to the same objects, we may be said to possess 
mathematical evidence of the common origin of all lan- 
guages, and consequently of the original unity of all man- 
kind. Thus by the investigations of the learned, without 
in the least intending it, the philological result is in exact 
accordance with the teachings of Moses, who says, that 
while the descendants of Noah dwelt in the plains of 
Shinar and were planning the erection of the tower of 
Babel, " the whole earth was of one language and of one 
speech." 

The following admirable summary of the arguments 
which assert the common origin of mankind, is from the 
able pen of the Rev. Dr. R. J. Breckinridge. In his " dis- 
course on the Black Race," he says : " The unity of the 
human race must be considered a fundamental and an ac- 



THE UNITY OF THE HUMAN RACE. 191 

cepted truth. Every department of knowledge has been 
searched for evidence, and all respond with a uniform testi- 
mony. The physical structure, constitution, and habits of 
the race — the mode in which it is produced, in which it 
exists, in which it perishes — everything which touches its 
mere animal existence, demonstrates the absolute certainty 
of its unity — so that no other generalization of physiology 
is more clear and more sure. Rising one step, to the high- 
est manifestation of man's physical organization — his use 
of language and the power of connected speech — the most 
profound survey of this most complex and tedious part of 
knowledge, conducts the inquirer to no conclusion more 
indubitable than that there is a common origin, a common 
organization, a common nature, underlying and running 
through this endless variety of a common power, peculiar 
to the race and to it alone. Thus a second science — phi- 
lology — has borne its marvellous testimony. Rising one 
more step, and passing more completely to a higher region, 
we find the rational and moral nature of men of every age 
and kindred, absolutely the same — those great faculties by 
which man alone — and yet by w r hich every man — perceives 
that there is in things that distinction which we call true 
and false, and that other distinction which we call good and 
evil ; upon which distinctions and upon which faculties rests 
at last the moral and intellectual destiny of the entire race ; 
belonging to us as men, without which we are not men, with 
which we are the head of the visible creation of God. So 
has a third science — a science which treats of the whole 
moral constitution of man, embracing in its wide scope 
many subordinate sciences — delivered its testimony. If we 
rise another step, and survey man as he is gathered into 
families, and tribes and nations, w T ith an endless variety of 
development, we still behold the broad foundations of a 
common nature reposing under all — the grand principles of 
a common being ruling in the midst of all. So a fourth, 



192 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

and- the youngest of the sciences — ethnology — brings her 
tribute. And now, from this lofty summit, survey the 
whole track of ages. In their length and in their breadth, 
scrutinize the recorded annals of mankind. There is not 
one page on which one fact is written — which favors the 
historical idea of a diversity of nature or origin — while the 
whole scope of human story involves, assumes and proclaims, 
as the first and grandest historic truth, the absolute unity 
of the race. And then mounting from earth to heaven, ask 
God— the God of truth, and he will tell you, that the 
foundation truth of all his work of creation and of provi- 
dence is the sublime certainty that our race was created in 
his own image, and of one blood; and thereupon, when 
they had fallen, he offered to them a common salvation, 
through his only begotten Son, made manifest in their 
common nature. 

" A bond of common brotherhood unites every portion 
of the race ; it is felt the most keenly by those who are 
most exalted; and even in the most abject its weak pulsa- 
tions will still live to attest the depth of the truth, that our 
race is one. It is in the life and doctrine of Jesus Christ 
that this profound instinct of human nature finds itself ex- 
alted into one of the grandest truths of religion, and in- 
vested with the sanction of heaven. In Him, the concep- 
tion of this universal brotherhood, — which nature teaches, 
and all knowledge fortifies, — becomes a precious, living 
truth." 



CHAPTEK V. 

SACRED CHRONOLOGY. 

Although, compared with the antiquity of the globe 
itself, the whole period of man's existence upon it is of 
brief duration, yet to fix the exact epochs of his early his- 
tory is a matter of great, if not insuperable difficulty. The 
learned Scaliger complained that no two systems of ancient 
Chronology could be found to agree, and that he arose 
from the study more doubtful than ever. And though the 
profound genius of Sir Isaac Newton was occupied with 
investigations of this subject during the greater«part of the 
last thirty years of his life, he did not succeed in settling 
the disputed points in such a manner as to obtain general 
acquiescence. 

The system of Chronology adopted by the English 
translators of the Sacred Scriptures, and placed in the 
margin of our Bibles, is derived from the Hebrew text. 
According to it, the deluge was 1,656 years from the crea- 
tion, from thence to the birth of Abraham 292 years, to 
his leaving Haran 134 years more, and the whole period 
between the flood and the birth of our Lord was 2,348 
years. This system is considered as open to grave objec- 
tions, and it is especially urged against it that it allows of 
too short a period for so advanced a state of political civi- 
lization as appears to have been attained in the days of 
Abraham. This difficulty is not, however, so great as has 
been supposed. For " there is nothing surprising in a 
9 



194 TESTIMONY OE SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

high civilization, even within a very short time from the 
deluge ; for the arts of life, which flourished in the ante- 
diluvian world, would have been preserved by those who 
survived the catastrophe, and might rapidly revive among 
their descendants. Rather, it is surprising that, except in 
Egypt, there should be so few traces of an early civiliza- 
tion." 1 But we are not restricted to the chronology of 
the Hebrew text. There are valid reasons for preferring 
the Septuagint chronology, which fixes the date of the 
deluge at B. C. 3,159, and the birth of Abraham at 1,002 
years afterward. It is now, perhaps, the general opinion 
of Biblical scholars, that the modern Hebrew text has been 
greatly vitiated in the department of chronology, and 
more especially in the genealogical tables which respect 
the antediluvian patriarchs, as well as of the generations 
after the flood. " The Septuagint version," says Mr. Raw- 
linson, " was regarded as of primary authority during the 
first ages of the Christian Church ; it is the version com- 
monly quoted in the New Testament ; and thus, when it 
differs from the Hebrew, it is at least entitled to equal 
attention. The larger chronology of the Septuagint would, 
therefore, even if it stood alone, have as good a claim as 
the shorter one of the Hebrew text, to be considered as 
the chronology of Scripture. It does not, however, stand 
alone. For the period between the flood and Abraham, 
the Septuagint has the support of another ancient and 
independent version — the Samaritan. The identity of the 
numbers in these two versions, it is difficult to account 
for but on the supposition that they are the real num- 
bers of the original." And these numbers deprive the 
sceptical objections which have been raised on this point 
of all their force. If perfect certainty here were essen- 
tially important, doubtless He who has so unceasingly 
watched over His Word, would have provided ample means 
1 Rawlinson's Essay on the Pentateueh. 



SACRED CnEONOLOGY. 195 

for our attaining it. But the Bible was not given to teach 
all things that man might desire to know with certainty, 
and as the literary value of the Iliad is not lessened be- 
cause scholars have always disagreed as to the time when 
Homer flourished, so neither does it touch the authority of 
Revelation, because the learned have not as yet been able 
to construct from it an unchallenged system of chronology. 
Still the antiquity of the human race and important 
epochs of early history must be regarded as approximately 
fixed by the Bible within certain limits of time, and its autho- 
rity may be considered as in some degree committed to their 
correctness. Fifty years ago, this was thought to be a vul- 
nerable point, and even Christian men trembled lest some 
discovery in the ruins of dead empires, should evoke a past, 
the length of whose bygone ages would disprove the sacred 
record. Says an eloquent writer : " The infidel boasted his 
assurance that every unwound papyrus would furnish refu- 
tation. He regretted that the sibyl's books were lost, or 
they would have been unanswerable. But the Egyptian 
Hieroglyphics were his favorite resource. Here was a store 
to be opened up of arguments against our religion, a quiver 
full of shafts. The Pyramid was to be the monument of 
Deism ; the Mummy from its cerements should start up as 
its advocate ; ancient Zodiacs would glow anew to illus- 
trate it ; and a sepulchral blast, scattering the hope of ages, 
must sweep from the cities of the dead. 'Memphis' 
should bury it. When the Rosetta stone was found, the 
free thinkers were thrown into a tumult of delight. They 
could now extort the secret, — Silence should speak, and 
Death confess ! The heart of £he mystery once more beat ! 
The long-imprisoned voice essayed its earliest articulations ! 
The first ray had been touched, after a lingering night ; 
Memnon's statue, and its lyre awoke ! Compare the re- 
searches of a Belzoni and the readings of a Champollion, 
and what is their result ? The chronology of Moses is 



196 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

there figured. Though the dynasty of the Pharaohs has 
perished and the line of the Ptolemies is consumed, yet out 
of these relics there is deciphered a demonstration of an 
authentic tale and date, to which the scrolls of Hercula- 
neum are but as letters of yesterday, and the cycles of Be- 
nares and Ujjayani, the almanacs of a few bygone years. 
' The reproach of Christ ' lives through all these ' treas- 
ures of Egypt.' " l 

The story of the attacks which were made on the Bible 
in this quarter, and their entire discomfiture, forms an in- 
teresting chapter of Christian Evidences. 

Toward the close of the last century, the Astronomical 
works and tables of the Hindoos furnished materials for 
assault. These tables professed to record observations 
conducted through many thousands of years. Attempts 
were made to verify this remote chronology, and to show 
that there was internal proof that the observations must 
have been made at the time specified. One table in par- 
ticular was adduced, the epoch of which was the commence- 
ment of the Cali-yuga or iron age of the Hindoo Mythol- 
ogy, 3,102 years before the Christian era and more than 700 
years before the Deluge ! A conjunction of the sun, moon, 
and planets is recorded in the Hindoo books, as having 
then occurred, and is mentioned in such a manner as to 
imply that the matter was one of direct observation. 

These claims were conceded by several philosophers of 
note in Europe and in Britain ; they were advocated by 
some of the leading journals, and for a time infidelity 
seemed to have gained a victory. Its triumph, however, 
was short. By Bentley, I^elambre, Laplace and others, 
these tables to which the Bramins had assigned so high an 
antiquity, were subjected to more exact and scientific 
scrutiny. It was then ascertained that the Hindoos had, 
ages ago, made respectable attainments in Astronomy, and 
1 Hamilton's Prize Essay on Missions. 



SACKED CHRONOLOGY. 19? 

that the rules which they followed in their calculations were 
approximately true, but that they were approximately true 
only. By observations of the sun, moon, and planets, they 
had discovered cycles, in which, after a long period of seem- 
ing irregularities, the heavenly bodies returned to the same 
relative positions. This enabled them to predict before- 
hand the occurrence of eclipses and certain configurations 
of" the planets; and by the same method they could also 
retrace the past and determine what similar astronomical 
phenomena had occurred thousands of years ago. They 
could thus, if disposed, falsify their history, and confirm the 
falsification by Astronomical evidence, and as long as the 
laws which govern the sidereal motions, were imperfectly 
understood, there was no means of detecting the fabrica- 
tion. But since these have been ascertained, the test of 
rigid calculation disclosed the fact that the Hindoo cycles 
having been calculated backward on insufficient data, 
though nearly exact, were not quite so. They contained 
an error which made the cycle at every revolution of its 
period when it was applied to past ages more and more 
wrong ; so that, through the accurate methods of modern 
Astronomy, it has now been shown that the phenomena 
of such a conjunction, as is pretended to have been ob- 
served, could not have taken place at the date assigned, nor 
at any period near it. It has also been demonstrated on 
scientific grounds, upon internal evidence drawn from the 
Table itself, that higher antiquity cannot be claimed for it 
than the 12th century of our era. Upon this point it is 
sufficient to cite the explicit testimony of the eminent as- 
tronomer Laplace, who cannot be accused of any special 
veneration for the Bible. " The origin of Astronomy," he 
says, " in Persia and India, is lost, as among all other na- 
tions, in the darkness of their ancient history. The Indian 
tables suppose a very advanced state of Astronomy ; but 
there is every reason to believe that they can claim no very 



198 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

high antiquity:" He adds, as the result of his own exami- 
nation, that " they were not grounded on any true observa- 
tion." It has also been proved that " the Surya Siddhanta," 
which the Hindoos consider as their most ancient Astro- 
nomical treatise, and pretend to have been revealed to their 
nation more than two millions of years ago, must have been 
composed within the ^50 years last past. It is, indeed, 
considered by scholars as more than probable that the 
Astronomy of the Hindoos was wholly derived from the 
Greeks who were colonized in Bactria by the conquests of 
Alexander. The coincidence between it and the Greek 
Astronomy is, at all events, both remarkable and suspi- 
cious. Thus, the days of the week are seven in number, 
and named after the seven planets ; while they follow in 
the same order as they do in the Greek. The ecliptic is 
divided as among the Greeks into twelve signs, with the 
same names, emblems, and arrangement ; and the signs are 
also divided into thirty degrees. As these matters are 
purely arbitrary, they cannot but have had the same source. 
The confirmation, therefore, which the Astronomical labors 
of the Hindoos were supposed to lend to the fabulous na- 
tional antiquity claimed by the Bramins, and the objection 
to the Chronology of the Bible from that source, are shown 
to be baseless and void. 

Simultaneously with the foregoing objection, a similar 
difficulty was discovered by French infidel writers in the 
historical records of China and India. Long lists of kings 
were produced, with dynasty upon dynasty of reigning 
families, extending back, it was claimed, for ages beyond 
the period which the Scriptures assign for the creation of 
man. The authenticity of these lists being assumed ; here, 
it was thought, an objection had at length been found 
against the credibility of the Scriptures, which could not 
be overcome. For a time Infidelity triumphed and the 
friends of the Bible were alarmed. But the result showed 



SACKED CHRONOLOGY. 199 

that the triumph was premature and the alarm groundless. 
Subsequent researches of the learned into the history and 
literature of China, have clearly shown that such preten- 
sions to incalculable antiquity are as unfounded as they are 
extravagant. The eminent missionary Gutzlaff, who had 
probably better opportunities than any other foreigner has 
possessed for obtaining the truth on the subject, says, in 
his "Sketch of Chinese History": "Not only is the fabu- 
lous part of Chinese History very uncertain, but even the 
first two dynasties, Hea and Shang, labor under great diffi- 
culties, which have never been entirely removed. We 
must in fact date the authentic history of China from Con- 
fucius, 550 years B. C, and consider the duration of the 
preceding period as uncertain, Chinese ancient astronomy 
has been celebrated by many ; but if we suppose their cal- 
culations to have been correct, the ancient Chinese, who 
lived, according to their historians, four thousand years 
ago, greatly surpassed their posterity of the present day, 
who, after so much instruction from foreigners, still betray 
a childish ignorance on many essential points of this diffi- 
cult science. Confucius evidently labors to refer the origin 
of his doctrines (which either originated with himself or 
were transmitted to him by tradition) to the remotest an- 
tiquity, for the purpose of inspiring his countrymen with 
veneration for them. In order to effect this, he had to 
create for his nation an authentic history out of the mate- 
rials furnished by tradition. As there were no regular 
annals, or any celebrated historiographer who flourished 
before his era, he was not able, notwithstanding the most 
laborious researches, to avoid error. The destruction of 
the greater part of Chinese books by Che-hwang-te, the 
first universal monarch of China (whose reign commenced 
246 years B. C), who hoped by this means to transmit his 
name to posterity as the founder of the empire, doubtless 
contributed likewise to render the chronology more erro- 



200 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

neous." It is remarkable that, as in the case of the Hin- 
doos just considered, the record of a similar Astronomical 
phenomenon has been found among what has been pre- 
served of ancient Chinese annals, which helps us to fix the 
limits of their antiquity. The Chinese have ever had a 
custom of inserting in their calendars remarkable eclipses 
or conjunctions of the planets, together with the name of 
the emperor in whose reign they were observed. To these 
events they have also affixed their own dates. A singular 
conjunction of the sun, moon and several planets, is record- 
ed in their annals as having taken place nearly at the very 
commencement of their history. The celebrated Cassini, 
to ascertain the fact, calculated back, and decisively proved 
that such an extraordinary conjunction actually did take 
place at China on the 26th of February, 2,012 years before 
Christ. This would take them back to something like 
three centuries after the Deluge, or 150 years after the 
confusion of tongues at Babel, in which event the primitive 
pictorial language of the Chinese has not improbably been 
supposed to have originated. There is nothing in the in- 
dependent testimony of their historians irreconcilable with 
the sacred history, but rather corroborative of its state- 
ments. China refuses to contradict the Bible. As it re- 
spects the Hindoos it is now fully admitted that they have 
no history. Among an incalculable number of books of 
mystical theology and abstruse metaphysics, they do not 
possess a single volume that is capable of affording any 
distinct account of the various events of their national 
career. This remarkable fact is thus accounted for in the 
learned work of Mr. Hardwick on " The Religions of the 
Ancient World " : " One peculiarity in the mental condition 
of the Hindus prevented both the ancients and ourselves 
from gaining any accurate knowledge of their aboriginal 
condition. Rich as their literature is found to be in other 
products, it has never given birth to formal histories ; and 



SACRED CHRONOLOGY. 201 

what is even more remarkable, the Hindu scholar is de- 
ficient in those very qualities which indicate the presence of 
historic consciousness. He gazes with a cold, if not con- 
temptuous spirit on the varieties of sense and time ; and 
therefore is disposed to treat all questions of chronology 
with arrogant indifference. He lives, or rather dreams 
away his lifetime, in the midst of intellectual problems ; la- 
boring hard to measure the immeasurable, to circumscribe 
the absolute. Compared with such recondite speculations 
every incident of life is but a mere ripple upon a boundless 
ocean, as fleeting as phenomenal. What now is, may, for 
aught he cares, have been a thousand times already, and 
may frequently come round afresh. The object of his in- 
terest is reunion with Divinity, a re-absorption of the finite 
soul into the primal source of being; and that destiny, ac- 
cording to the various creeds of Hindostan, implies obliv- 
iousness in reference to all earthly knowledge, and entire 
abstraction from all shadows and illusions of the past." In 
addition to this, we have the high authority of Forbes' 
Oriental Memoirs for the statement that " The origin of 
the Hindus, like that of most other nations buried in ob- 
scurity and lost in fable, has baffled the researches of the 
most persevering investigators." The learned Sir William 
Jones, after the fullest examination, pronounced it as his 
firm conviction that no established dynasty in the East, can 
be traced farther back than 2,000 years before the Chris- 
tian era, the age of Abraham. The Pre-Adamite and Ante- 
diluvian dynasties of China and India have vanished, there- 
fore, before the light of investigation, like frost-work in the 
sunbeam, and the objection is heard no more. 

But again the note of triumph was heard in the infidel 
camp, in token of a fresh assault upon the citadel of Divine 
truth, the materials for which were found among the mys- 
terious and colossal remains of Egypt. The celebrated sci- 
entific expedition which, under the auspices of the first 
9* 



202 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

Napoleon, explored the wonders of that ancient land, met 
with some monuments, which to them spoke of times long 
anterior to the records of history, whether sacred or pro- 
fane. These were the zodiacs of Esneh and Denderah, 
which were suppose^ to represent the state of the heavens 
at the time when the temples in which they were found 
were erected, and to indicate a very remote antiquity. 
The presumed discovery was at once made public, as de- 
cisive of the question, and as assigning a period to Egyp- 
tian civilization far beyond the time of Abraham, or even 
the deluge. French savans eagerly claimed it as a demon- 
stration that the statements of Moses were erroneous. 
" M. Jomard proved to his own satisfaction that these zodi- 
acs were three thousand, and M. Dupuis that they were, at 
the very least, four thousand years older than the Christian 
era, while M. Gori would not abate a week of seventeen 
thousand years." The discrepancies in their conclusions 
proved the unsoundness of their theories, and investiga- 
tions of learned and scientific men exposed the fallacy of 
their assumptions. Still the adversaries of Revelation were 
unwilling to acknowledge defeat, and persisted in ascribing 
to the zodiacs an antiquity of more than six thousand 
years. The apprehensions of the Christian world from this 
source were, however, soon relieved. In August, 1799, a 
French artillery officer, named Bouchard, belonging to that 
army under whose protection Denon and his company of 
savans had made their explorations, when digging near 
Rosetta in Egypt for the foundation of a military work, 
came upon a huge block of basalt, marked with various 
strange characters and hieroglyphics. These characters 
were found to exhibit three inscriptions, in three different 
languages, one in Greek, another in hieroglyphic or sacred, 
and a third in the ancient Coptic, called also enchorial or 
demotic, like the trilingual inscription affixed by Pilate to 
the Cross. This was the celebrated Rosetta stone, now in 



SACKED CHRONOLOGY. 203 

the British Museum, which has been the subject of dili- 
gent investigation by learned antiquarians of every nation 
in Europe ; and this stone, under the ingenious labors of 
Doctor Young in England, and Charapollion in France, 
yielded, by a comparison of the characters found in the 
different inscriptions, a key to decipher the hieroglyphics 
that covered the obelisks, temples, and tombs of Egypt. 
A small obelisk discovered on the Isle of Philoe in the Nile 
in 1816 by M. Caillaud, containing the names of Ptolemy 
and Cleopatra in the Enchorial and Greek characters, still 
farther aided these researches, and at length the veil of 
mystery which had so long covered the monumental re- 
mains of the land of Mizraim, was lifted. . That language 
which had been unknown for ages, and whose meaning it 
was supposed was forgotten forever, now disclosed the fact 
that the celebrated zodiacs extended no farther back than 
the times of the early Roman emperors. On the walls of 
the great temple at Denderah, in the ceiling of which the 
zodiac or planisphere had been placed, Champollion read 
the titles, names and surnames of the emperors Tiberius, 
Claudius, Nero and Domitian ; and on the portico of 
Esneh, the zodiac of which was reputed to be older than 
that of Denderah, he read the imperial names of Claudius 
and Antoninus Pius. Consequently, these monuments for 
which Yolney and other infidel literati had claimed an in- 
calculably remote antiquity, belong to that period when 
Egypt was under the domination of the Romans, and they 
cannot be dated earlier than the first or second century of 
the Christian era. As soon as the Rosetta stone furnished 
the key to the hieroglyphics, the objections from the zodi- 
acs, and the temples of Egypt, with their fabulous anti- 
quity, lost their power and are heard no more. 

But it has been sought on other grounds to establish an 
antiquity for Egypt irreconcilable with the Chronology of 



204 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

the Bible. The means for this have been supplied <by the 
fragments of the Chronicles of Manetho, an Egyptian priest 
and historian, who lived 300 years B. C. Though his state- 
ments were once considered as almost wholly fabulous, he is 
now recognized by scholars as a reliable authority as far as it 
respects his honesty of intention and opportunities for infor- 
mation. His history has been lost, but his dynasties remain 
tolerably entire. These appear to claim a national exist- 
ence for Egypt of nearly 30,000 years previous to this time ! 
Twenty-five of these millenniums, however, are ascribed to 
the time when gods, demi-gods and spirits bore rule on 
earth ; while the actual history of Egypt does not commence 
until Menes, the first human king, ascended the throne. 1 
He is considered as identical with Mizraim, the son of 
Ham, and Manetho fixes the date of his accession, accord- 
ing to Lepsius, at 3,892 B. C. ; while Baron Bunsen, correct- 
ing Manetho by the numerical data of a fragment of Era- 
tosthenes, places it at B. C. 3,643. Other authorities, such 
as Brugsch and Bockh, following different methods of 
computing the dynasties, assign that era, respectively, to 
4,455 B. C. and 5,702 B. C. The lowest of these dates, that 
of Bunsen, involves a discrepancy with the Scripture 
chronology, even if we follow the system of the Septua- 
gint. This, however, is disposed of by the statement of 
Syncellus, a Byzantine monk of the ninth century, who 
informs us that in a corrected list of the Egyptian dynasties, 
fifteen hundred years were stricken off by Manetho him- 
self. The remoter dates have been obtained by regarding 

1 Berosus, a Chaldean writer of whom Eusebius has preserved some frag- 
ments, has a yet more extravagant Chronology. He undertakes to give the 
annals of the Medes and the Chaldeans for upward of 400,000 years ! But 
omitting from his scheme what is plainly mythic computation, the eras of 
gods and demi-gods, we have remaining a period which mounts up. no higher 
than 2,458 years before Christ. If the accuracy of this be assumed, it can 
readily be reconciled with the Septuagint Chronology. 



SACRED CHRONOLOGY. 205 

the dynasties of Manetho as consecutive ; but later investi- 
gations have proved that several of them were in reality 
contemporaneous lists of petty sovereigns of parts of Egypt. 
"While admitting this, Baron Bunsen, upon a theory of his 
own founded upon mere fancy, claimed that the historic 
records of Egypt reached far beyond the accession of Me- 
nes, up to the year B. C. 9,085. But, says Mr. Rawlin- 
son, " if it be still thought that the mere opinion of men 
so well acquainted with the Egyptian monuments, as Bun- 
sen and Lepsius, ought to have weight, despite the weak- 
ness of the argumentative grounds on which they rest their 
conclusions, let it be remembered that others, as deeply 
read in hieroglyphic lore, and as capable of forming a 
judgment, have come to conclusions wholly different. Sir 
Gardner Wilkinson inclines to place the accession of Menes 
about B. C. 2,690, and Mr. Stuart Poole gives as his first 
year B. C. 2,717. These writers believe that the number 
of contemporaneous dynasties has been much underrated 
by the German savans, who have especially erred in re- 
garding the Tbeban dynasties as, all of them, subsequent 
to the Memphite. They consider that Manetho's first and 
third Theban dynasties were contemporary with his third, 
fourth, and fifth Memphite ; that the first and second Shep- 
herd dynasties ruled at the same time in different parts of 
Lower Egypt ; and that the dynasty of Chortes (Manetho's 
14th) was contemporary with the two Shepherd dynasties 
above mentioned, and with the second Theban. They do 
not deny that their arrangement of the dynasties is to 
some extent conjectural ; but they maintain that, while the 
idea of it was derived from a close inspection of Manetho's 
lists, it is also strikingly confirmed by the monuments. 
While names of such weight can be quoted on the side of 
a moderate Egyptian chronology, it can not be reasonably 
argued that Egyptian records have disproved the Biblical 



206 ESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

narrative." The remote antiquity of Egypt is, indeed, in- 
disputable ; but this is perfectly reconcilable with the state- 
ments of the Mosaic narrative, which imply that the 
Egyptians had attained a high point of arts, government 
and knowledge, when Abraham, the father of the Hebrew 
nation, was still leading a nomadic life. 

It should also here be noted, that the high reputation 
of Baron Bunsen as a scholar gave an authority to the long 
lists of kings and dynasties and the consequent vast antiquity 
of Egypt, which they would not otherwise have had. But,' 
says an eminent authority, * " when we come to examine the 
researches of Bunsen, we actually find that to this day he 
has never discovered the true Hieroglyphic alphabet. His 
whole system is built on a series of conjectures and assump- 
tions, which, moreover, he varies and contorts, without rule 
or order, at every new sentence." 

Another fragment of antiquity called "the Table of 
Abydos," from its discovery in 1818, by Mr. William Bankes, 
among the ruins of Abydos, an ancient city of note on the 
western bank of the Nile, corroborates the above conclu- 
sion. Having been deciphered by competent scholars, it 
was found to yield evidence of only twenty-five sovereigns 
predecessors of Rameses-Sesostris ; and allowing to each 
of these an average of twenty years, we shall have five 
hundred years from the first king, probably Menes. Now, 
if the great monarch, to whose honor this tablet was en- 
graven, died about fifteen hundred years before the Chris- 
tian era, a short time before the Exodus, we bring the reign 
of Menes to about three hundred and fifty years after the 
deluge, a period when the descendants of Mizraim the son 
of Ham, would have become sufficiently powerful to form a 
great nation. And so far is this monument from confirm- 

i Rev. J. L. Porter, the able author of " Five Years in Damascus and 
Murray's Hand Book for Syria and Palestine." 



SACRED CHRONOLOGY. 207 

ing the theories built upon the statements of Manetho, 
that, so far as it goes, it is a witness against them, and con- 
firmatory of the Chronology derived from sacred history. 

But while infidelity has appealed to the zodiacs and 
hieroglyphics of Egyptian temples for evidence wherewith 
to overthrow the authority of the Bible, a remarkable veri- 
fication of the date of its most ancient portion has been 
deciphered in the starry vault above us. 

In the same striking chapter of Job, to which repeated 
reference has already been made, we find another interrog- 
atory : " Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Plei- 
ades or loose the bands of Orion ? Canst thou bring forth 
Mazzaroth in his season or canst thou guide Arcturus with 
his sons ? " The rising and setting of certain constellations 
with the sun, were to the ancients marks for determining 
the seasons, 1 and it is known that the heliacal rising of the 
Pleiades was by the Egpytians associated with the spring. 
Accurate calculations, founded on the usual precession of 
the equinoxes, have ascertained that the star Taigette, the 
northernmost of the constellation, was precisely on the co- 
lure of the vernal equinox 2,136 years before Christ. This 
was before the birth of Abraham according to the common 
Chronology, and in his youth, according to the Chronology 
of Dr. Hales. And consequently, for several centuries 
thereafter, in the same latitude, the Pleiades would be es- 
teemed as the cardinal constellation of spring. "Mazza- 
roth" designated the zodiac, or series of constellations 
through which the sun passes, bringing on the seasons in 
their annual order. Arcturus was the pole-star, and his 
sons the stars that move with him. Job is asked if he 
could hinder those "sweet influences " to which nature 
yields when the rising of the Pleiades announces the ap- 
proach of spring; or whether he could loosen or retard 
that rigidity which contracts and binds up her fertile 
bosom, when the approach of winter is made known by 



208 TESTIMONY OP SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

the appearance of Orion. There is abundant internal evi- 
dence for assigning the book of Job to a very early period 
in the history of the world, and the patriarch is generally 
held by scholars to have lived not far from the time of 
Jacob. x As the calculations of Astronomy, carried back to 
that period, confirm this conclusion, they assist in dispelling 
the cloud of fabulous antiquity with which infidelity would 
obscure the credibility and authority of the Bible. 

And not only in the heavens above, but in the earth 
beneath, may evidence be found to overthrow the infidel 
theories of the vast antiquity of man. 

" To any one," wrote Bishop Berkeley, more than a cen- 
tury ago, " who considers that, on digging into the earth, 
such quantities of shells and, in some places, bones and 
horns of animals, are found sound and entire, after having 
lain there in all probability some thousands of years ; it 
should seem probable that guns, medals, and implements 
in metal or stone might have lasted entire, buried under 
ground forty or fifty thousand years, if the world had been 
so old. How comes it then to pass that no remains are 
found, no antiquities of those numerous ages preceding the 
Scripture accounts of time ; that no fragments of buildings, 
no public monuments, no intaglios, no cameos, statues, 
basso-relievos, medals, inscriptions, utensils, or artificial 
works of any kind are ever discovered, which may bear 
testimony to the existence of those mighty empires, those 
successions of monarchs, heroes, and demi-gods for so many 
thousand years ? Let us look forward and suppose ten or 
twenty thousand years to come, during which time we will 
suppose that plagues, famine, wars and earthquakes shall 
have made great havoc in the world, — is it not highly 
probable that, at the end of such a period, pillars, vases, 
and statues now in being, of granite or porphyry or jasper 
(stones of such hardness as we know them to have lasted 
two thousand years above ground, without any consider- 



SACEED CHKONOLOGT. 209 

able alteration), would bear record of these and past 
ages? Or that some of our current coins might then 
be dug up, or old walls and the foundations of buildings 
show themselves, as well as the shells and stones of the 
primeval world, which are preserved down to our own 
times." 

Up to a recent period, this conclusion was supposed to 
be unimpeachable by Geological evidence. The "testi- 
mony of the rocks," as read by its most eminent exposi- 
tors, was, that if there be any fact well established in Geol- 
ogy, it is that the advent of man upon earth can not be 
dated farther back than about six thousand years. Sir 
Charles Lyell, after quoting the above passage from Bishop 
Berkeley with approval, adds to the same effect : " That 
many signs of the agency of man would have lasted at 
least as long as 'the shells of the primeval world,' had 
our race been so ancient, we may feel as fully persuaded as 
Berkeley ; and we may anticipate with confidence that 
many edifices and implements of human workmanship, and 
the skeletons of men, and casts of the human form, will 
continue to exist when a great part of the present moun- 
tains, continents, and seas have disappeared. Assuming 
the future duration of the planet to be indefinitely pro- 
tracted, we can foresee no limit to the perpetuation of 
some of the memorials of man." 1 This distinguished au- 
thor has since withdrawn his support from the Scriptural 
view, and is now a strenuous advocate for an opposite the- 
ory. In a work which he has recently published on the 
"Geological Evidence for the Antiquity of Man," he main- 
tains that "memorials" have been found, establishing a 
period of duration for the past existence of our -race on 
the earth, so vast, that even the extravagant chronology of 
Baron Bunsen would be inadequate to fill it. A considera- 
ble amount of details respecting discoveries of " flint im- 

I Lyell's Princ. of Geol. 8th edit. p. 740. See also pp. 144, 145, 773. 



210 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

plements " near Amiens and Abbeville, in France, and of 
human remains in caves near Liege, Dusseldorf, at the foot 
of the Pyrenees, and in other places, is brought forward in 
the volume in justification of this hypothesis. 1 It is alleged 
that proofs have been thus obtained "that remains of 
mammoths occur in undisturbed alluvium, so imbedded with 
works of human art, and sometimes with human bones, as 
to admit of no doubt that man and mammoths co-existed." 
As the mammalian tribes are supposed to have been ex- 
tinct ages before the era of Adam, the inference is that 
the " popular," i. e. the Biblical chronology is altogether 
deficient and unreliable. But the premises from which it 
is sought to draw this conclusion are still matters of 
doubt and dispute among men of science. An able writer 
in Blackwood's Magazine [No. 540, pp. 422-439], has 
clearly shown, that before extreme human antiquity can 
be predicated of the " remains " discovered in the " drift 
deposit," there are two. questions yet to be solved. 1. Are 
they of the same age as the formation in which they are 
found ? And 2. Is that formation itself of an antiquity 
very remote ? The affirmative of these questions, he 
claims, is "not proven." And even granting that man 
was contemporaneous with ancient elephants and mam- 
moths no longer found among the animal tribes of our 
globe, is it certain and beyond doubt that those gigantic 
races did not live down to a much later period in the 
earth's history, than has been hitherto supposed? "All 
these are problems awaiting solution. Meanwhile, it would 
be presumptuous and unwarrantable, on the part of any 
man, to assert the high antiquity of our race upon such 

J As it respects the recent discoveries of peat deposits and Kjoeclchen 
modding (kitchen leavings) in the Scandinavian peninsula, and of lake 
dwellings in Switzerland, although, unquestionably, memorials of pre-his- 
toric races, it is conceded that they furnish no data to militate with the 
Scripture chronology. 



SACKED CHRONOLOGY. 211 

slight and insufficient evidence. All the negative testi- 
mony, even of geological science, omitting these alleged 
exceptions, is in favor of that comparatively modern epoch 
known as the annus mundi. We have no wish to contend 
for any very strict interpretation of the Scripture chronol- 
ogy ; but the addition of a few thousand years would go 
only a little way to meet the hypothesis of those who con- 
tend that these are human relics of vast antiquity, while 
all profane as well as sacred history utters a silent but 
consistent protest against an extension so indefinitely great. 
We have every reason, then, to suspend our final judg- 
ment. If divines have their prejudices, so philosophers 
have their moments of enthusiasm ; and it is only just that 
time should be allowed to arbitrate between them." 1 

On this subject, it is believed, that the great majority 
of scientific men still accord with the opinion expressed by 
the eminent Professor Sedgwick in his Discourse on the 
Studies of the University : a Geology tells us, out of its 
own records, that man has been but a few days a dweller 
on the earth ; for the traces of himself and of his works 
are confined to the last monuments of its history. Inde- 
pendently of every written testimony, we therefore believe 
that man, with all his powers and appetencies, his marvel- 
lous structure and his fitness for the world around him, 
was called into being within a few thousand years of the 
days in which we live." 

Even the heathen poet, Lucretius, though an advocate 
of the Epicurean hypothesis of the formation of the world 
by a fortuitous concourse of atoms, could see reasons for 
believing that the present system of things could not be of 
unlimited antiquity. 

1 Eclectic Mag. June, 1860. 



CHAPTER VI. 

PEIMITIVE HISTOKICAL TRADITIONS. 

The shadowy uncertainty which the preceding results 
of Chronological research have shown to rest upon the 
early history of the most ancient nations, naturally sug- 
gests the obligations we owe to the Bible considered sim- 
ply as a record of the past. Man is a being who looks 
both before and after, and as the mind awakens to the real- 
ities of the scene in which we find ourselves placed, the de- 
sire is irresistibly excited to know something of those who 
have occupied it before us, and by the monuments of whose 
existence and labors we find ourselves surrounded. " Not 
to know what happened before we were born," as Cicero 
has said, " is to remain always children." " Human and 
mortal though we are, we are, nevertheless, not mere in- 
sulated beings, without relation to the past or future. 
Neither the point of time nor the spot of earth, in which 
we physically live, bounds our rational and intellectual en- 
joyments. We live in the past by a knowledge of its his- 
tory, and in the future by hope and anticipation. By 
ascending to an association with our ancestors ; by con- 
templating their example, and studying their character ; by 
partaking their sentiments, and imbibing their spirit; by 
accompanying them in their toils; by sympathizing in 
their sufferings and rejoicing in their successes and their 
triumphs, — we mingle our own existence with theirs, and 
seem to belong to their age. We become their contempo- 
raries, live the lives which they lived, endure what they 



PRIMITIVE HISTORICAL TRADITIONS. 213 

endured, and partake in the rewards which they enjoyed." l 
We cannot comprehend the part we are called to act our- 
selves, unless we know the character of those whose places 
we take. History, therefore, must ever possess an undying 
fascination for the minds of men, for its subject is the story 
of their race and the gradual unfolding of that mighty 
scheme of Providence and Grace, which, beginning with 
the creation and fall of man, " runs onward through suc- 
cessive generations, binding together the past, the present 
and the future, and terminating, at last, with the consum- 
mation of all things earthly, at the throne of God." 

But while this interest is attached to Universal History, 
it is especially felt with respect to that period with which 
the poets have linked the legends of the golden age, — the 
world's childhood and early youth. Those opening scenes 
of our race have a charm with which none other can vie, 
and every line, every word, is eagerly welcomed that bears 
their faintest impress. But were it not for the Holy Scrip- 
tures, our knowledge of those scenes would be scant indeed. 
Take away the books of Moses, and the early history of 
mankind is almost utterly a blank. But for them, " the 
patriarchs of the infant world, with kings, the powerful of 
the earth, the wise and good, fair forms and hoary seers " 
of those long vanished ages, would have left no trace to 
tell us that they once had been. 

" Yixere fortes ante Agamemnona 
Multi ; sed omnes illacrimabiles 

Urgentur ignotique longa 
Nocte, carent quia vate sacro." 

Hot. Car. L. iv. c. 12. 

Before great Agamemnon reign'd 

Reigned kings as great as he and brave, 

Whose huge ambition's now contain'd 
In the small compass of a grave : 

1 Daniel^Vebster. 



214 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

In endless night they sleep, unwept, unknown : 
No bard had they to make all time their own." 

Francis' Translation. 

" The reptiles that crawled upon the half finished sur- 
face of our planet have left memorials of their passage en- 
during and indelible, but the line of march of mighty con- 
querors and their armies which once desolated the earth, 
has been utterly obliterated." And so of ancient empires 
and the primitive seats of power. Barbaric dwellings oc- 
cupy the shattered sites of their vanquished grandeur, from 
the scattered symbols of their old renown the meaning has 
departed, and the tongue of gray tradition has long ceased 
to utter their once memorable names. Chaldea was the 
earliest seat of science ; but the sun of Babylon has set ; 
the golden city has ceased ; and her lofty towers, her hang- 
ing gardens, her impregnable walls, are but as the memory 
of a dream. The populous Nineveh is extinct, and only 
tells the tale of her ancient glory in the ruins which have 
recently been uncovered from the dust of ages. The mon- 
umental records of Egypt, it is true, carry us back to the 
morning of the world, and sustain the traditions of her 
early wisdom and proficiency in the arts ; but though the 
Hieroglyphic key has drawn from them highly valuable and 
important confirmation of the statements of Holy Writ ; 
yet, as even Baron Bunsen acknowledges, " Egypt has, 
properly speaking, no history." "In those monuments," 
says Stanley, and the same is true of recent Assyrian dis- 
coveries, " the traveller sees great kings and mighty deeds 
— the father, the son, and the children, — the sacrifices, the 
conquests, the coronations. But there is no before and after, 
no unrolling of a great drama, no beginning, middle and 
end of a moral progress, or even of a mournful decline." 
Phoenicia, Tyre, Sidon, and Carthage, were early seats of 
commerce and of letters, but have left no historian to de- 
tail their discoveries or record their fame. The rock-built 



PRIMITIVE HISTORICAL TRADITIONS. 215 

palaces and temples of Petra, and the splendid and exten- 
sive ruins of Persepolis and Palmyra testify the skill of 
their architects and the magnificence of which they were 
once the abodes ; but the names and deeds of their princes 
and heroes, unconsecrated by the muse of History, have 
faded from the knowledge of men. The civilization and 
refinement of the ancient Etruscans have left no traces 
save in the painted tombs of their chiefs and nobles. The 
imperishable writings of Greece and Rome appear at first 
to present a torch to illumine the midnight of the past, but 
upon examination we find that there is only light to render 
" darkness visible." The early annals of Rome, which, 
though called " the Eternal City," compared with the He- 
brew polity was but of yesterday, perished during its cap- 
ture by Brennus and his Gauls ; and Grecian History be- 
yond the Olympiads, which commenced but 116 years 
before the Christian era, about 23 years before the founda- 
tion of Rome, is involved in an impenetrable tissue of cloud 
and fable. 

Thus, says Sir Thomas Browne, " Time sadly overcometh 
all things, and is now dominant, and sitteth on a sphinx, 
and looketh upon Memphis and old Thebes, while her sister 
Oblivion reclineth demi-somnous on a pyramid, gloriously 
triumphing, making puzzles of Titanian erections, and turn- 
ing old glories into dreams. History sinketh beneath her 
cloud. The traveller as he paceth amazedly through these 
deserts, asketh of her, who builded them, but what it is he 
heareth not." 

11 The spider has woven his web in the imperial palace, 
And the owl has sung her watch song on the towers of Afrasiab." 

From this silence of Profane History respecting the" 
primitive ages of mankind, infidelity has drawn the objec- 
tion that the writings of Moses are corroborated by no con- 
curring testimony. To this assertion of Hume, Dr. Camp- 



216 TESTIMONY OP SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

bell, of Aberdeen, has replied, " neither are they invalidated 
by any contradictory testimony ; and for the plain reason 
that there is no human composition that can be compared 
with them in point of antiquity.'* The " Father of history " 
lived more than a thousand years posterior to Moses, and 
Thucydides has declared that there were no authentic an- 
nals of his nation prior to the Trojan war. But although 
the Mosaic records are not corroborated by the concurrent 
testimony of any coeval histories, because if there were 
any such histories, they are not now extant ; they are not, 
therefore, destitute of all collateral evidence. "In the 
theogonies of Greece and Rome, in the puranas and vedas 
of the East, the shasters of ancient Mexico, the mythology 
of Egypt, and the sagas of the Scalds, are to be found 
glow-worm glimmerings of truth, flickerings of light among 
clouds of error " or rather " shadows of realities contained 
in that Book, whose shadows themselves are true. Chaos 
the beginning of all things ; darkness preceding light ; the 
spirit of deity infused into the mass ; the world so fashioned 
as the bird comes from its egg ; man formed out of clay and 
touched with the Promethean spark of Heaven ; the domin- 
ion he claims over the brutes ; the golden age ; the deluge 
of Ogyges ; a race of giants engaged in warfare with the gods 
and attempting to scale Olympus ; the descent of One to 
bring back his bride from Hades ; the recognition of a triple 
deity, and of the power of sacrifice to free from sin, and 
of a brighter hope to fallen man, what are these but myth- 
ical versions of the facts and disclosures of the Bible?" 1 
The learned Faber has shown that " the various systems of 
Pagan Idolatry in different parts of the world correspond 
so closely, both in their evident import and in numerous 
points of arbitrary resemblance, that they cannot have been 
struck out independently in the several countries where 
they have been established, but must all have originated 

1 Lecture on Religion and Science, by Rev. H. M. Mason, D. D. 



PRIMITIVE HISTORICAL TRADITIONS. 21 7 

from some common source. But if they all originated from 
a common source (he argues), " then either one nation must 
have communicated its peculiar theology to every other 
people in the way of peaceful and voluntary imitation, or 
that same nation must have communicated it to every other 
people through the medium of conquest or violence ; or, 
lastly, all nations must in the infancy of the world have 
been assembled together in a single region, and in a single 
community, must, at that period and in that state of society, 
have agreed to adopt the theology in question, and must 
thence, as from a common centre, have carried it to all 
quarters of the globe. These are the only three modes. 
. . . . As the incredibility of the first, and as the equal 
incredibility and impossibility of the second, may be shown 
without much difficulty, the third alone remains to be 
adopted." 1 

Some of the more important of the "broken echoes 
and memorial fragments" which have floated down to us 
from the wreck of bye-gone ages and have been collected 
by the labors of the learned, will now be given. Examin- 
ation of them will prove that they are strongly corrobora- 
tive of the inspired narrative. 

Thus, the wide spread tradition of a primeval chaos 
from which the world arose — the production of all living 
creatures out of water and earth by the efficiency of a 
supreme Mind — the formation of man last of all in the 
image of God, and his being vested with dominion over 
the inferior animals, so strikingly concurs with the first 
chapter of Genesis, that Ovid, in whose pages it is recount- 
ed, seems to be the paraphrast of Moses. (Metamorphoses, 
lib. i., v. 5-86.) This tradition can be traced in whole or 
in part to the ancient Chaldeans, Egyptians, Phoenicians, 
Hindoos, Chinese, Etruscans, Greeks, and the Indians of 
America. 

1 Faber's Origin of Pagan Idolatry. 
10 



218 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

Grotius says that " the nations which most rigidly re- 
tained ancient customs, reckoned by nights, darkness hav- 
ing originally preceded light, as Thales taught from the 
ancients. The remembrance of the completion of the work 
of creation on the seventh day was preserved by every na- 
tion of whom any records or traditions have come down to 
us. Hesiod, who lived about nine hundred years before 
the Advent of Christ, says : a The seventh day is holy." 
Homer, who sang about the same period, and Callimachus, 
likewise a Greek poet, who flourished about seven hundred 
years later, allude to the seventh day as holy. Theophilus 
of Antioch says, concerning the seventh day, " The day 
which all mankind celebrate." Porphyry says, " The Phoe- 
nicians consecrated one day in seven as holy." Lucian re- 
marks, u The seventh day is given to schoolboys as a holi- 
day." Eusebius observes, " Almost all the philosophers and 
poets acknowledge the seventh day as holy." Clemens 
Alexandrinus says, " The Greeks as well as the Hebrews, 
observe the seventh day as holy." Josephus, the Jewish 
historian, says, " No city of Greeks or barbarians can be 
found which does not acknowledge a seventh day's rest from 
labor." Philo testifies, " The seventh day is a festival to 
every nation." It was found (as ancient authors testify) in 
the calendars of the Hindus, Egyptians, Arabs and Assyri- 
ans. All these vestiges unquestionably point to the insti- 
tution of the primeval Sabbath in Paradise, which has sur- 
vived the fall of empires, and has existed among all suc- 
cessive generations, another proof, in addition to those 
already given, of the common origin of mankind. 

From the Egyptians we have a tradition that man's life 
at the beginning was simple or innocent, and that his body 
was naked ; hence the golden age, in which holiness and 
happiness prevailed, and the garden of the Hesperides with 
its golden apples, so beautifully sung by ancient poets. 
Maimonides has remarked that the history of Adam, of 



PRIMITIVE HISTORICAL TRADITIONS. 219 

Eve, of the tree, and of the serpent, existed in his time 
among the idolatrous Indians ; and witnesses likewise of 
our own age (says Grotius) testify that the same tradition 
exists among the inhabitants of Peru and of the Philippine 
islands, who derived their origin from India. In tl}e my- 
thology of Egypt, the serpent bears an important character ; 
represented in an upright form, it entered into all its rites 
and ceremonies. Among the coins of Augustus there is a 
remarkable one of a female with a mural crown, a palm 
branch in her hand, and a dove by her side, while her feet 
trample upon a serpent. Upon a Tynan coin there is the 
figure of a serpent twisted round a tree ; and upon a silver 
medal found in one of the sepulchral monuments of Mex- 
ico, a man and woman are represented in a garden with a 
serpent near them. This is obviously a picture record of 
the first pair in Eden, the serpent and the fall. 

" In the ancient mysteries of Greece, it is well known 
that the people used to carry about a serpent, and were 
instructed to cry out JEva, whereby the devil seemed to 
exult over the fall of our first mother. Even now, says 
Stackhouse, in idolatrous nations, there are evidences of 
the triumph of the devil under the form of a serpent. 

" Plutarch says the great serpent Python signifies de- 
struction, and that serpent Greek mythology represents to 
have been slain by the son of Zeus or Jupiter. Porphyry 
and others among the Greeks, speak of " evil demons," 
whose wish is to be gods, and the power which presides 
over them aspires to be the greatest of gods; but the 
Most High, with a mighty arm, restrains their machina- 
tions. 

" In the Gothic theology, the god Thor, whom they es- 
teem as their middle divinity, or mediator between God and 
man, is said to have ' bruised the head of the great ser- 
pent with his mace, but so severe was to be the contest, 
that he himself would be suffocated with the flood of venom 



220 TESTIMONY OP SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

from the mouth of the serpent.' What can this mean but 
the seed of the woman bruising the serpent's head, and the 
serpent biting his heel ? 

" In India, also, two sculptured figures are yet extant, 
in one of their oldest pagodas, one of which represents 
Chrishna, an incarnation of Vishnu, trampling on the crushed 
head of the serpent, while the other exhibits the poisonous 
reptile encircling the deity in its folds and biting his 
heel." x 

And in the ancient legend of Pandora's box, on the 
opening of which by the hand of a woman, all evils spread 
throughout the world, we recognize a significant emblem 
of the origin of evil ; while hope at the bottom, was as sig- 
nificant a symbol of the prophetic promise, that by the seed 
of the woman, evil would finally be destroyed. 

Grotius farther informs us, that " Berosus, in his history 
of the Chaldeans, Manetho, in that of the Egyptians, Haes- 
tiseus, Hascateus, Halbanicus, in their histories of Greece, 
and Hesiod among the poets, have related that the life of 
those who were descended from the first man extended to 
nearly a thousand years, which is the less incredible, as the 
histories of a great many nations, and especially Pausanius 
and Philostratus among the Greeks, and Pliny among the 
Romans, relate that the bodies of men in ancient times 
were much larger, as was found by openiug the tombs. 
Catullus, following many of the Greek writers, relates that 
divine visions appeared to man before the frequency and 
enormity of his offences secluded him from converse with 
Deity and his angels." 

In his valuable work on " the Bible and the Classics," 
already quoted, Bishop Meade says, " The ancient poets 
and philosophers speak of four successive ages through 
which the world passes, — the Golden, the Silver, the Bra- 
zen, and the Iron, — representing their characters by the 
1 Th# Bible and the Classics, by Bishop Meade. 



PRIMITIVE HISTORICAL TRADITIONS. 221 

comparative value of the pure metals. The last is the 
worst, and ends in the destruction of the world by the 
deluge. But in many of the ancient writings there are 
two series of such ages, set forth by the same four metals, 
— gold, silver, brass and iron. The facts mentioned show 
clearly that the second series commenced immediately after 
the flood, with Noah and his family — as the first did with 
Adam and his, immediately after the creation. That the 
first age in each was the purest ; that each successive period 
was marked by gradual deterioration, sacred and profane 
history attest most clearly. As to the event terminating 
the first series, there is no doubt. The deluge was sent to 
purify the earth from the deep corruption which covered 
it. The human race began anew with the family of Noah, 
and was for a time comparatively pure in religion and 
morals. 

Sometimes the ancients confound together the two 
series of ages, those before and those after the flood, as 
they do indeed (according to their doctrine of a succession 
of worlds) Creation and the Deluge, Adam and his children 
with Noah and his. We only state the general result of 
the researches of such men as Sir William Jones and 
others, in saying that they abound with references to the 
comparative character and condition of the different ages. 
The first, as we have said, was that of paradise itself, when 
all things abounded spontaneously, when men were called 
" the supreme and happy inhabitants of the earth." Then 
came a time when they were called the " moderately hap- 
py " inhabitants of the earth ; and then a time when the 
least happy inhabitants of the earth lived. Then came the 
iron age, — the age of war, and lust and violence and ra- 
pine ; of heroes and giants, of which Ovid says, 

"De duro est ultima ferro, 
Protinus erupit venae pejoris in asvum 
Omne nefas : fugere pudor verumque fidesque. 



222 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

Vivitur ex rapto. Non hospes a hospite tutus, 

Non socer a genero. Fratrurn quoque gratia rara est. 

Victa jacet pietas." 

" Stubborn iron, tbe last : 
Then blushless crimes, which all degrees surpast. 
All live by spoil : the host his guest betrays, — 
Sons, fathers-in-law, — 'twixt brethren love decays : 
Foiled piety, trod under foot, expires." 

The daring wickedness of these giants in sin as well 
as in stature, has given rise to poems in ancient days called 
the " Wars of the Titans," in which they are represented 
as actually assaulting heaven as we assault a stronghold 
upon earth ; but there are circumstances in the war which 
have led to differences of opinion as to the time and place 
of the same. Some think it to be the rebellion of the wicked 
antediluvians, which led to their overthrow by the deluge; 
others, that it was the rebellion of the builders of Babel, 
which ended in the confusion of language and their disper- 
sion through the earth. In either case we have the testi- 
mony of Pagan poets to two most important events in Mo- 
saic history. 

The tradition of a deluge has been found in every na- 
tion from one extremity of the globe to the other ; it 
mingles with the legends of countries the most remote; 
and whose striking diversity of language would seem to 
have interdicted any interchange of communication. The 
Hindu and the Mexican, the Greek and the Roman, all 
attest and acknowledge a penal flood, which has swept 
their forefathers away and consigned them to destruction. 

The Jewish historian Josephus says, that " all the writ- 
ers of the barbarian histories make mention of the ark and 
of this flood." He instances Berosus, collector of the Chal- 
dean monuments, Hieronymus, an Egyptian, who wrote the 
Phoenician antiquities, Mnaseas, and IsTicolaus of Damascus. 
He adds, a great many more make mention of the same 



PRIMITIVE HISTORICAL TRADITIONS. 223 

event. Berosus, who was contemporary with Alexander 
the Great, in his history of the Babylonians, relates the fol- 
lowing circumstances in regard to a general deluge : " It 
happened in the reign of King Xisuthrus, who was the tenth 
in descent from the first created man. Saturn advised him 
of the approaching calamity in a dream. He instructed 
him to build an immense ship, to furnish it with provisions, 
and to enter it with his family and friends, and a number 
of quadrupeds and birds. These instructions he obeyed. 
Then the flood began. The whole world perished. When 
the waters began to abate, Xisuthrus sent out some of the 
birds. They could find neither food nor resting place and 
immediately returned. In a few days he sent them out 
again. They returned with their feet covered with mud. 
He sent them out a third time and they returned no more. 
He concluded, from this, that the earth was reappearing, 
made an opening in the side of his vessel, and saw that it 
was approaching a mountain on which it soon rested. He 
then came forth, adored the earth, erected an altar, and 
offered sacrifices to the gods. Xisuthrus himself having 
suddenly disappeared, a voice in the air informed his family 
that the country in which they were was Armenia, and 
commanded them to return to Babylon." 

The account given by the witty Lucian, a professed 
scoffer at all religions, who lived in the second century, is, 
perhaps, still more remarkable. In a treatise entitled "The 
Syrian Goddess," while speaking of a very ancient temple 
to her honor at Hierapolis, he remarks, u It is generally 
believed that this temple was erected by Deucalion, the 
Deucalion in whose time there was an immense mass of 
waters." He proceeds to give the history of this Deuca- 
lion, as he had heard it in Greece from the Greeks them- 
selves. The present race of men (they said) was not the 
original race. That race entirely perished, with the excep- 
tion of Deucalion, from whom the present inhabitants of 



224 TESTIMONTT OF SCIENCE TO THE BIELE. 

the earth, numerous as they now are, all descended. That 
former race were men of a contumelious bearing, who per- 
petrated the most heinous* crimes. They neither listened 
to the voice of the suppliant, exercised the rites of hospi- 
tality, nor regarded the sanctions of an oath. They were, 
therefore, surprised by an overwhelming calamity. Sud- 
denly, the waters burst forth from the earth, immense rains 
fell from the skies, the rivers overflowed their banks, the 
ocean discharged its stores upon the dry land, — there was 
one universal scene of waters. All men perished. Deuca- 
lion alone, preserved for his justice and for his piety, was 
left to repeople the earth. He placed his children and his 
wives in a great Ark, which he had, and also entered it 
himself Then came to it by pairs, swine, and horses, and 
lions, and serpents, and other terrestrial animals, and he ad- 
mitted them within the Ark. There they remained harm- 
less. Through a divine influence a friendship arose between 
them, and they all sailed together in harmony while the 
waters remained upon the earth. This, Lucian remarks, is 
what the Greeks say of Deucalion. But the inhabitants of 
Hierapolis relate a wonderful event which subsequently 
happened. In their country, the earth opened and ab- 
sorbed all the water. Deucalion observing it, erected al- 
tars, and built a temple to Juno over the chasm. The 
chasm, says Lucien, I saw, now small, and whether it ever 
was greater I know not. In commemoration of this event, 
not only the priests, but all Syria and Arabia, twice a year, 
bring water from the sea to this temple. Men go even from 
the Euphrates to the sea for this purpose. They pour it 
into the temple. It descends into the chasm, which, though 
small, receives it in great quantity. This rite, they say, 
was instituted by Deucalion in memory at once of the del- 
uge and of his preservation. Plato believes that there was 
a universal deluge, which occurred before the partial inun- 
dations celebrated by the Greeks. Plutarch, in a treatise 



PRIMITIVE HISTORICAL TRADITIONS. 225 

upon the sagacity of animals, has this remark : " The dove 
sent out of the Ark, it is said, by returning gave Deucalion 
a sure indication of the continued existence of the storm ; 
by not returning, she assured him of restored serenity." A 
similar legend to that related by Lucian, no doubt bor- 
rowed from the Greeks, is found in the pages of the Roman 
poet Ovid, who has adorned it with the embellishments of 
fancy. 

Nicolaus of Damascus, to whom Josephus refers, has 
this passage : " There is a great mountain in Armenia over 
Minyas, called Baris, upon which it is reported that many 
who fled at the time of the deluge were saved ; and that 
one who was carried in an Ark, came on shore upon the 
top of it ; and that the remains of the timber were a great 
while preserved. This might be the man about whom 
Moses the legislator of the Jews wrote." 

"With the foregoing accounts, it will be interesting to 
compare the ancient Aztec tradition as given by Humboldt. 
According to this, " Coxcox, or Tezpi, the American Noah, 
embarked in a spacious acalli or ark, with his wife and 
children, many animals and grain, the preservation of which 
was dear to the human race. When the Great Spirit com- 
manded the waters to retire, Tezpi sent forth from his bark 
a vulture. This bird, nourished by dead flesh, did not re- 
turn, on account of the great number of carcasses which 
were scattered upon the newly-dried earth. Tezpi sent 
out other birds, of which the humming-bird alone returned, 
bearing in its beak a branch covered with leaves. After 
which Tezpi seeing that the soil began to be covered with 
new verdure, left his bark near the mountain of Cothuacan." 
" Everywhere," adds Humboldt, " the traces of a common 
origin, the opinions concerning cosmogony, and the primi- 
tive traditions of nations, present a striking analogy even in 
minute circumstances. Does not the humming-bird of Tezpi 
call to mind the dove of Noah, that of Deucalion, and the 
10* 



226 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

birds, according to Berosus, which Xisuthrus sent forth from 
the Ark, to try if the waters had subsided, and if as yet he 
could erect altars to the gods of Chaldea ? The raven no 
less than the dove and the order no less than the name ; the 
first the ravenous beast not returning ; the second, forever 
afterward the bird of peace, re-appearing and re-entering, 
identify each narrative as that of the selfsame fact with a 
speciality of circumstances which sober reason cannot mis- 
interpret or mistrust." 

From the same high authority, we have also this strik- 
ing acknowledgment : " These ancient traditions of the 
human race, which we find dispersed over the surface of 
the globe, like the fragments of a vast shipwreck, are of the 
greatest interest in the philosophical study of our species. 
Like certain families of plants, which, notwithstanding the 
diversity of climates and the influence of heights, retain the 
impress of a common type, so the traditions respecting the 
primitive state of the globe, present among all nations a 
resemblance that fills us with astonishment : so many differ- 
ent languages, belonging to branches which have no con- 
nection with each other, transmit the same facts to us. 
The substance of the traditions respecting the destroyed 
races and the renovation of nature, is everywhere almost 
the same, although each nation gives it a local coloring. 
In the great continents, as in the smallest islands of the 
Pacific Ocean, it is always on the highest and nearest 
mountains, that the remains of the human race were saved ; 
and this event appears so much the more recent, the more 
uncultivated the nations are." * 

There is manifestly but one natural and satisfactory ex- 
planation of this wonderful harmony in the traditions of all 
nations in all parts of the earth — nations, the most diverse 
in language, religion, laws, and manners ; and that is, that 
all of them must have had their origin in one event, whose 
1 Humboldt's Travels and Researches, pp. 190-92. 



PRIMITIVE HISTORICAL TRADITIONS. 227 

memory neither the power of time nor the dispersion of the 
human family over all the continents and islands of the 
earth, has been able to obliterate, though as the stream 
advanced from its source, it necessarily became mingled 
with many absurdities and fictions. 

As we proceed, we find other traces and resemblances 
which point unmistakably to succeeding facts and events 
in the sacred history. Grotius farther says, that " Japhet, 
primogenitor of the Europeans, and from him Jon, or as it 
was formerly pronounced, Javon of the Greeks, also Ham- 
mon of the Africans, are names to be found in the writings 
of Moses, and others are traced by Josephus and other 
writers in the names of nations and places. Which of the 
poets does not mention the attempt to climb the heavens ? " 
The following remarkable confirmation of the Scripture 
narrative of the Tower of Babel and the confusion of 
tongues is given by Mr. Rawlinson from an old writer, 
Abydenus-, who either drew directly from the Chaldean 
historian Berosus, or had access to the sources which he 
used: "At this time the ancient race of men were so 
puffed up with their strength and tallness of stature that 
they began to despise and contemn the gods, and labored 
to erect that very lofty tower which is now called Babylon, 
intending thereby to scale heaven. But when the build- 
ing approached the sky, behold the gods called in the aid 
of the winds, and by their help overturned the tower and 
cast it to the ground. The name of the ruins is still called 
Babel, because, until this time, all men had used the same 
speech, but now there was sent upon them a confusion of 
many and diverse tongues." 

The burning of Sodom is mentioned by Diodorus Sicu- 
lus, Strabo, Tacitus, Pliny, and Solerinus. Tacitus relates 
that " a tradition still prevailed in his days of certain pow- 
erful cities having been destroyed by thunder and lightning, 
and of the rich plains in which they were situated having 



228 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

been burnt up. He adds, that evident traces of such a 
catastrophe remained, while the parched and burnt soil 
had lost its fertility. This historian concludes with express- 
ing his own belief in that awful judgment, derived from an 
attentive consideration of the country in which it was said 
to have happened. In a similar manner, Strabo, after de- 
scribing the nature of the lake Asphaltis, adds, that the 
whole of its appearance gives an air of probability to the 
prevailing tradition, that thirteen cities, the chief of which 
was Sodom, were once destroyed and swallowed up by 
earthquakes, fire, and an inundation of boiling sulphurous 
water." 

" Herodotus, Diodorus, Strabo, and Philo Biblius bear 
testimony to the very ancient custom of circumcision, 
which was practised among the descendants of Abraham ; 
not the Hebrews only, but also the Iduniseans, Ishmaelites, 
and others. The history of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and 
Joseph, in accordance with that of Moses, formerly existed 
in Philo Biblius, taken from Sanchoniathon, in Berosus, 
Hecatseus, Damascenus, Artaphanus, Eupolimus, Deme- 
trius, and partly in the very ancient writers of the Orphic 
songs, and something is still extant in Justin taken from 
Trogus Pompeius." 

References to Moses, the Hebrew lawgiver, are found 
in various Pagan historians : Diodorus Siculus calls him a 
man of most superior wisdom and courage. He mentions 
the departure of Israel from Egypt ; of their advance into 
Palestine, and seizure of a number of cities, particularly 
Jerusalem. He speaks of their worship, their tribes, their 
code of laws, by which they were kept separate from every 
other people ; of the priesthood established in one family ; 
of judges, instead of kings, being appointed to decide all 
their controversies, and the supreme authority being vested 
in the chief priest ; he adds, that Moses concluded the vol- 
ume of his laws by claiming for them divine inspiration. 



PRIMITIVE HISTORICAL TRADITIONS. 229 

Strabo also mentions various particulars respecting Moses. 
Eupoliraus likewise celebrates him as being the first wise 
man, and the inventor of letters, which the Phoenicians re- 
ceived from the Jews, and the Greeks from the Phoenicians. 
The Orphic songs also expressly mention that he was drawm 
out of the w^ater, and the two tables were given him from 
God. 

In the decree issued by the magistrates of Pergamos, 
forty-four years B. C., the following statement is found : 
" Our ancestors were friendly to the Jews, even in the days 
of Abraham, who was the father of all the Hebrews, as we 
have also found it set down in our public records." 

"We have also, the testimony of Josephus already noticed 
that in the public records of different nations, and in a 
great number of books extant in his time, evidences were 
to be found that the most remarkable events in the history 
of Israel were admitted generally by the Heathen world, as 
veritable and indisputable facts. 

Not a few of the memorable incidents in the career of 
the great Hebrew lawgiver are mentioned in the pages of 
Artapanus, a Greek historian of uncertain, but very ancient 
date. The oppression of the Israelites; the flight of Moses 
into Arabia, and his subsequent marriage ; a circumstance 
similar to that of the burning bush; his Divine commission 
to deliver his countrymen ; the transformation of his rod 
into a serpent ; the various plagues of Egypt ; the spoiling 
of the Egyptians ; the passage through the Red sea ; the 
destruction of Pharaoh and his host ; and the support of 
the Israelites by manna in the wilderness, are all related in 
his narrative. Moses is further said to be the person 
whom the Greeks call Musaeus, the preceptor of the cele- 
brated Orpheus. The same author asserts, that the passage 
of the Israelites through the Red sea was not unknown to 
the Heliopolitans, who gave the following account of that 
supernatural transaction : " The king of Egypt, as soon as 



230 TESTIMONY OP SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

the Jews had departed from his country, pursued them 
with an immense army, bearing along with him the conse- 
crated animals. But Moses having by the Divine command 
struck the waters with his rod, they parted asunder, and 
afforded a free passage to the Israelites. The Egyptians 
attempted to follow them, when fire suddenly flashed in 
their faces, and the sea, returning to its usual channel, 
brought a universal destruction upon their whole army." 
The circumstance of the Egyptians being struck with 
lightning, as well as being overwhelmed by the waves, is 
mentioned in the 77th Psalm, although not noticed in the 
Pentateuch. 

From Diodorus Siculus we learn that the Ichthyophagi, 
who lived near the Red sea, had a tradition handed down 
to them through a long line of ancestors, that the whole 
bay was once laid bare to the very bottom, the waters 
retiring to the opposite shores; and that they afterward 
returned to their accustomed channel with a most tremen- 
dous revulsion. Even to this day, the inhabitants of the 
coast of Corondel preserve the remembrance of a mighty 
army having been once drowned in the bay which Ptolemy 
calls Clysma. 

In the fragments of Manetho, we meet with a distinct 
though distorted notice of the departure of the Israelites 
out of the house of bondage. The Hebrews are represent- 
ed as leprous and impious Egyptians, who, under the con- 
duct of a priest of Heliopolis, named Moses, rebelled on 
account of oppression, occupied a town called Avaris, or 
Abaris, and having called in the aid of the people of Jeru- 
salem, made themselves masters of Egypt, which they held 
for thirteen years ; but who were at last defeated by the 
Egyptian king, and driven from Egypt into Syria. Upon 
this passage Mr. Rawlinson remarks: "We have here the 
oppression, the name Moses, the national name Hebrew, 
under the disguise of Abaris, and the true direction of the 



PRIMITIVE HISTORICAL TRADITIONS. 231 

retreat ; but we have all the special circumstances of the 
occasion concealed under a general confession of disaster ; 
and we have a claim of triumph which consoled the 
wounded vanity of the nation, but which we know to have 
been unfounded. On the whole, we have perhaps as much 
as we could reasonably expect the annals of the Egyptians 
to tell us of transactions so little to their credit ; and we 
have a narrative fairly confirming the principal facts, as 
well as very curious in many of its particulars." 

In the characteristics ascribed to Hermes or Mercury 
in the Grecian Mythology, we find some remarkable coin- 
cidences with the Scripture narrative of the life and char- 
acter of Moses, which it is difficult to account for except 
upon the supposition that the heathen legend is an adapta- 
tion of the inspired account of the illustrious leader of the 
Hebrews. The Caduceus of Hermes, with the serpents 
twining around his rod, is at once suggestive of the appear- 
ance of Moses armed with the credentials of his mission. 
If Moses descended from the Mount with the commands of 
God, and was emphatically God's messenger, so was Her- 
mes the messenger from Olympus ; his chief office was that 
of messenger. If Moses is known as the slayer of the 
Egyptian, so is Hermes (and so is he more frequently called 
in Homer) Argiphontes the slayer of Argus, the overseer 
of a hundred eyes. Moses conducted through the wilder- 
ness to the Jordan, those who died and reached not the 
promised land ; nor did he pass the Jordan. So was Her- 
mes the conductor of the dead, delivering them over to 
Charon (and here note the resemblance of the name with 
Aaron, the brother and associate of Moses) ; nor was he to 
pass to the Elysian fields. In the hymn of Hermes ascribed 
to Homer, other coincidences may be found. 

The remarkable miracle by which Joshua was enabled 
to complete the overthrow of the confederate enemies of 
Israel, is also another event corroborated by tradition, and 



232 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

in such a manner as to shame the cavils of the scorner. It 
is recorded that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still 
on Gibeon. The slaughter of the armies of the five kings 
commenced after he had " gone up all night from Gilgal." 
He came upon the enemy " suddenly." It was during the 
pursuit which immediately commenced, that Joshua, in the 
strength of the God of Israel, uttered the command which 
must have confounded the worshippers of the sun and 
moon. The sacred writer declares that " there was no day 
like that, before it or after it." The fabled fall of Phjeton 
and the history of Hercules both establish the fact, that it 
was known to the recorders of ancient tradition, that there 
had been a night, like which was no night before it or after 
it. In the history of Hercules, it is fabled that Jupiter 
caused a long night — a night equal to three ordinary nights. 
Now, in consequence of the miracle wrought in Palestine, 
it is obvious that throughout the greater part of the known 
world, instead of the return of the day, they had continued 
night. At the time the revolution of the globe was sus- 
pended, while " the sun stood still in the midst of Heaven," 
over the land of Canaan, the western world must have re- 
mained in darkness. To this then may be traced the fabled 
destruction of Phaeton, when he attempted to direct the 
chariot of the sun. Conflicting accounts would, however, 
be received from the more eastern countries, some of which 
would have had twilight, and part even might have just 
seen the sun arrested in his rising, or heard that it might 
be seen during the period of their long night. 

" But still more extraordinary testimony to the occur- 
rence of the miracle has been lately brought to light from 
the records of Hindoo mythology. As in the fables of 
Western Paganism, we read of an extraordinary night, so 
in the traditions of the eastern hemisphere, we hear of a 
day of extraordinary length. This fact is incontestably 
proved by the Skanda Purana, where it is related, that at 



PRIMITIVE HISTORICAL TRADITIONS. 233 

the end of the Suttya Jug, or golden age, a mountain 
arose, and for a time impeded the progress of the sun, till 
by miraculous agency, at the prayer of Agastya, the ob- 
stacle was removed, the mountain sunk into its place, and 
the sun was permitted to pursue his wonted course." 

In addition to the above, it has been suggested that the 
sacrifice of Iphigenia is a mythical version of the story of 
Jephthah's daughter, and that the Prometheus Bound of 
iEschylus is a Pagan conception of the promised deliverer 
whose sufferings would accomplish the reconciliation of di- 
vine justice and divine love. 

Such are the most important traditionary fragments that 
have come down to us from profane sources, respecting the 
early ages of the world. They are at least sufficient to re- 
fute the infidel charge that the principal facts related in the 
books of Moses depend merely upon his solitary testimony. 
On the contrary they show that the concurrent voice of all 
nations witnesses in their behalf. From the Nile to the 
Ganges, and from China to Peru, whatever of ancient rec- 
ord or tradition can be found, supports the truth of the 
facts recorded in the Bible. And though the enemies of 
Christianity, with the most perverse ingenuity, have ran- 
sacked all the archives of antiquity, their efforts have been 
in vain. Not the slightest contradictory evidence can be 
produced. And can this be the work of chance ? Can we 
believe that the combination of the traditions of all heathen 
nations in support of the truth of Scripture is nothing more 
than a curious coincidence ? Surely, the Epicurean hypoth- 
esis, according to which a fortuitous concourse of atoms 
produced the glorious universe, is hardly more absurd. 
Testimony from such sources cannot be impeached, and it 
is impossible to reconcile it with any other conclusion than 
that the Bible is the Book of God. 

But though valuable as auxiliary evidence, these classic 
and heathen legends are in themselves shadowy and unsub- 



234 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

stantial. They do not dispel the darkness of primeval his- 
tory, and, had we no other source of information, we should 
know nothing respecting the dawn of the human race. In 
the Bible we find the realities of these shadows and are 
brought out of darkness into light. It has no mythical 
ages of gods and demi-gods, claims no fabulous antiquity 
for its people, asserts no divine origin for its heroes. As 
it is free from the absurdities of false physical science, so 
neither does it contain even an allusion to the fabulous ani- 
mals and races in which the Greeks and Romans believed. 
It tells of no nation of Pigmies, or Cimmerians, who live in 
perpetual darkness ; no men " whose heads grew beneath 
their shoulders!" no griffins or phoenixes or other mon- 
sters. It has no tales of water carried in a sieve or of 
olive trees transplanting themselves, like those which Pliny 
relates with such trustful credulity. It relates, indeed, many 
marvels and wonders, but they are all wrought by the hand 
of the Omnipotent Creator, and are worthy in themselves 
of the putting forth of his might. It takes us back to what 
was ere Time began his career, and enables us to behold the 
Heavens and the Earth arise out of nothing at the word of 
God. It tells us when and where the original man emerged 
from the dust under the forming hand of the Creator. It 
tells us of his glorious original endowments, how he was 
made upright and in the image of God. It then tells the 
sad story of his fall, and thus solves that enigma so perplex- 
ing to the lofty piercing intellects of Pagan sages, who saw 
that some terrible disaster, some dire calamity, must have 
happened to the physical and moral system of the world, 
but who could not interpret " the groans of nature." The 
numerous and wide spread traditions of the flood, which 
left to ourselves we should have guessed in vain, here in the 
graphic description of the inspired Hebrew historian find 
their true significance. By the same volume we are assist- 
ed in accounting for the multiplicity of languages which 



PRIMITIVE HISTORICAL TRADITIONS. 235 

now exist in the world, and for that remarkable method of 
attempting to appease the divine wrath by sacrifice, once 
so universal, until the light of Christianity made known the 
only prevailing sacrifice of the Redeemer. Here also is 
recorded the original dispersion of those primitive races, 
whose descendants now people the globe, and here we read 
of the rise and fall of ancient empires which had run their 
race of glory ere Greece and Rome had won a place in his- 
tory. And here, above all, are recorded the gradual un- 
foldings of that wondrous plan of grace, whose consumma- 
tion " kings and prophets waited for," which reveals hope 
to those who were ready to perish, and a way to everlast^ 
ing joys to those who " sat in darkness and the shadow of 
death." 

Thus while the legends of the primitive ages which are 
found in the Heathen writers are " but a tissue of dream 
and fable, and may be compared to the scanty shrubs of 
the desert in a mirage, which will often enlarge themselves 
into distant groves of palms and cedars, watered by clear 
lakes, and cheat the eye with their grandeur and beauty ; 
the early history of the Old Testament stands out alone, 
like a solitary column amidst broken ruins, or one opening 
of clear sky amid the dense mists of the morning, which 
everywhere else conceal the origin of nations and primeval 
antiquity in mysterious darkness." 1 

Truly then does ancient Fuller say : " Without this his- 
tory the world would be in total darkness, not knowing 
whence it came or whither it goeth. In the first page of 
this sacred book a child may learn more in one hour, than 
all the johilosophers of the world in a thousand years." 

1 Christian Observer. 



CHAPTER VII. 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 



As the era of the New Testament falls considerably 
within the historic period, it becomes a matter of high and 
grave importance to ascertain whether the facts which it 
relates bear the undeniable impress of authenticity and 
truth. As far more abundant materials are at hand, where- 
with to sift and verify its statements, than in the case of the 
Old Testament, the more imperative the necessity to show 
that it is prepared to sustain the scrutiny. This is a point 
which modern scepticism has assaulted with all its resources 
of subtilty and art. It has labored to show that we know 
nothing of the rise of Christianity " as a matter of certain 
history — that it was not till a comparatively late period 
that some floating legends, half romance and half parable, 
spun in the brain of Asiatic visionaries, assumed at last a 
definite form, and came to be mistaken for history, when it 
was too late to look back and test historically whether or no 
the things reported had really occurred." Evidently, this 
objection, if it could be maintained, would be a fatal one to 
the cause of revelation ; for it is a peculiar feature of our 
religion that it is indissolubly bound up with facts, so that 
it must stand or fall with them. " We may concede," says 
Mr. Rawlinson in his Bampton Lectures, " the truth of the 
whole story of Mahomet as it was related by his early fol- 
lowers, and this concession in no sort carries with it even 
the probable truth of the religion. But it is otherwise with 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 237 

the religion of the Bible. There, whether we look to the 
Old or the New Testament, the Jewish dispensation or the 
Christian, we find a scheme of doctrine which is bound up 
with facts ; which depends absolutely upon them ; which is 
null and void without them ; and which may be regarded 
for all practical purposes, established, if they are shown to 
deserve acceptance." Let the advent and life of Jesus 
Christ, his miracles, his resurrection from the dead, and the 
miracles wrought by his apostles after his ascension to Hea- 
ven, be disproved as matters of fact, and the whole fabric 
of Christianity, with all its peculiar doctrines, is a manifest 
imposture. 

A point of no little importance is gained, toward estab- 
lishing the historic verity of those facts, when it is shown 
that in the times of the New Testament, with the exception 
of our Lord's resurrection, they were uncontradicted. For 
let it be noted that in those times detection in case of error 
or fraud was inevitable. The events of Scripture are de- 
tailed with the greatest minuteness as to time, place, and 
circumstances, connected with numerous public facts, and 
names of public men. The occasions also on which the 
miracles were wrought are stated, and the names of the 
persons who were the subjects of them, — some of them well 
known characters, — with their places of abode, are often 
given, — while the general facts respecting Jesus Christ, as 
claiming to be the Messiah, were of the most public nature, 
connected with the government, and involving the interests 
and characters of the whole Jewish nation, especially of the 
chief men and rulers. 

Can it be supposed then that with all the intense malig- 
nity and opposition that were enkindled by the Christian 
religion, those facts would have remained unchallenged, if 
their truth could have been successfully impugned ? That 
the numerous enemies of the Gospel in the early ages of our 
faith, refrained from attacking the truth of the facts upon 



238 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

which Christianity rested, is a tacit admission that their 
notoriety rendered a contradiction hopeless. 

But there is also abundance of positive testimony. " As 
an historical question," says Isaac Taylor, " Christianity is 
distinguished from others of a like nature by nothing, un- 
less it be the multiplicity and the force of the evidence it 
presents. The Gospels demand a verdict according to the 
evidence, in a firmer tone than any other ancient histories 
that can be put to the bar of common sense. From those 
who are convinced of its truth, Christianity does, indeed, 
ask the surrender of assent to whatever it reveals of the 
mysteries of the unseen world; but to its impugners it 
speaks only of things obvious and palpable as the objects 
and occupations of common life ; and in relation to matters 
so simple, it demands what cannot be withheld — the same 
assent which we yield to the same proof in all other cases." 

Dr. Lardner and others have filled numerous volumes 
with evidence drawn from the writings of the early cen- 
turies, Jewish, Profane, and Christian, corroborating the 
matters of fact recorded in the Gospels. A brief abstract 
of the more important portions of this evidence is all that 
can here be given. 

The remarkable fact will be first adverted to, of the 
wide spread anticipation of the coming of some illustrious 
Personage, which prevailed in the world contemporaneous- 
ly with the Advent of Christ. Not only were the Jews 
looking for the fulfilment of the Messianic prophecies, but 
throughout the Roman empire there was an anxious expec- 
tation of some wonderful event, and even the oracles and 
sybils of heathenism became instinct with prophetic mutter- 
ings of a new dawn in human affairs. "Whether this expec- 
tation is to be attributed to lingering traditions of the 
original promise made to our fallen progenitor, or to 
knowledge of the prophecies derived from the dispersed 
Jews or the Greek version of the Old Testament Scrip- 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 239 

tures, there is the most unexceptionable historical evidence 
of its existence. The beautiful lines in the fourth Eclogue 
of Virgil are well known. He begins the poem with say- 
in C, that "the last age of the Cumean prophecy is come; 
the great order of ages again commences; the virgin is 
already returning, and the Saturnian reign." 

" The last great age, foretold by sacred rhymes, 
Renews its finished course ; Saturnian times 
Roll round again ; and mighty years, begun 
From their first orb, in radiant circles run. 
The base degenerate iron offspring ends ; 
A golden progeny from heaven descends ; 
0, chaste Lucina, speed the mother's pains, 
And haste the glorious birth ! " 

According to this eclogue, the son to be born was to be 
the offspring of the gods, the great seed of Jupiter. He 
was to command the world, and to introduce peace. He 
was to abolish violence and injustice, and to restore the 
life of man to its original innocence and happiness. He 
was to Kill the Serpent. The blessings of his reign were 
to extend to the animal and vegetable kingdoms. The lat- 
ter was to be purged of its noxious poisons, and the nature 
of the most savage beasts was to be changed, so that the 
lowing herds should feed secure from lions. Still there 
were to remain some traces of ancient fraud. Great cities 
should still be encompassed with walls, and war should be 
excited ; but at length, under this Sovereign, all was to be 
composed and happy, — when 

" No plough shall hurt the glebe, no pruning hook the vine. 
The Fates, when they this happy web have spun, 
Shall bless the sacred clew, and bid it smoothly run. 
Mature in years, to ready honors move, 
0, of celestial seed ! foster son of Jove ! 
See, lab'ring Nature calls thee to sustain 
The nodding frame of heaven, and earth, and main : 
See to their base restor'd, earth, seas, and air, 
And joyful ages from behind, in crowding ranks appear." 



240 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

This poem proves, not only the expectation which at 
that time prevailed of the great king who was to arise, but 
describes the precise features of Messiah's reign, as deline- 
ated by the Hebrew prophets, and especially the peculiar 
characteristics of its effects on the world, which were to be 
most remarkable, not at the commencement, but after the 
conclusion of a certain period. 

The flatterers of Vespasian professed to find the fulfil- 
ment of this general expectation in the accession of that 
emperor to the throne of the Caesars. Josephus expressly 
assigns it as the principal cause of the revolt of the Jews 
against the Roman government, and of the provocation of 
that war which terminated in the destruction of Jerusalem. 

Tacitus, speaking of the time when Vespasian waged 
war with the Jews, asserts that " a firm persuasion prevailed 
among a great many that it was contained in the ancient 
sacerdotal writings, that about this time it should come to 
pass that the East should prevail, and that those who should 
come out of Judea should obtain the empire of the world." 

Suetonius, in his fife of the Emperor Vespasian, relates 
that "there had prevailed, all over the East, an ancient 
and constant opinion, that it was in the fates, that at that 
time there should come out of Judea those who should ob- 
tain the empire of the world." 

" It is thus established as an undoubted fact, that at the 
period of the Advent of the Redeemer, there existed a gen- 
eral expectation of the coming of some great and distin- 
guished Personage ; that it was uniform, that it was ancient, 
that it was founded on what was believed to be the decree 
of heaven, and contained in the sacerdotal writings, that he 
who should appear was to come out of Judea, and that he 
was to obtain the empire of the world. And this gives a 
striking significancy to the declaration of the prophet, which 
in ' the fulness of time ' was fulfilled at Bethlehem, that * the 
Desire of all nations should come.' " 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 241 

Josephus, the celebrated Jewish historian, was contem- 
porary with the Apostles, having been born in the year 37. 
His abilities were considerable, and he had the best oppor- 
tunities for information respecting the early rise of the 
Christian Religion. 

In his Antiquities there is a remarkable passage respect- 
ing the character and claims of Jesus, which, however, as 
it is objected to by the enemies of Christianity as spurious, 
though upon insufficient grounds, we will not urge it as 
evidence. 1 His silence elsewhere respecting the Founder 
of our faith and the Christian religion is accounted for by 
his beiug a Jew, and is confirmatory of Christianity. Had 
he told what he knew he w T ould have condemned himself. 
The minute description he has given of the other religious 
sects in Judea, fully proves that this important omission 
was one of design, to which he was compelled by circum- 
stances. 

The account, however, which Josephus has given us in 
his Antiquities and in his history of the Jewish War, of the 
state of Judea, civil, political, and moral during his times, 
is in perfect accordance with the representations which we 
have in the Gospels. He supplies, moreover, a fact which 
had been passed over in the Gospel account, probably as 
belonging to secular history, but which is strikingly cor- 
roborative of the sacred narrative. We read in St. Mat- 
thew, that on the death of Herod, Joseph " arose and took 
the young child and his mother, and came into the land of 

1 The passage is as follows : " Now there was about this time Jesus, a 
wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man ; for he was a doer of wonderful 
works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew 
over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was (the) 
Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, 
had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not 
forsake him ; for he appeared to be alive again the third day ; as the divine 
prophets had foretold these, and ten thousand other wonderful things con- 
cerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not ex- 
tinct at this dav." 

11 



242 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus did reign in 
Judea, in the room of his father Herod, he was afraid to go 
thither." The particular cause of this sudden fear, the 
evangelist does not mention. But Josephus relates, that 
the first act of Archelaus was the cruel murder of three 
thousand Jews at the festival of the Passover — a deed of 
savage atrocity, the knowledge of which, on the return of 
the Jews to their respective cities, could not fail of being 
instantly carried to every part of Judea, and which accounts 
most naturally for the suspension of the sacred journey. 

The testimony of Josephus to the appearance of John 
the Baptist and his execution by Herod is still more im- 
portant, while his omission of all reference to his doctrine 
and his mission as forerunner of the Messiah, is strikingly 
significant. His words are: " Some of the Jews thought 
Herod's army was destroyed by God, he being justly pun- 
ished for the slaughter of John, who was surnamed the 
Baptist. For Herod had put that good man to death, 
although he exhorted the Jews, after having exercised vir- 
tue and righteousness towards one another, and having 
performed the duties of piety towards God, to come to 
baptism. For thus baptism would be acceptable to him, 
not if they abstained from some sins only, but if, to purity 
of body, they joined a soul first cleansed by righteousness. 
But when many gathered round him, for they were much 
pleased with the hearing of such discourses, Herod, fearing 
lest the people, who were greatly under the influence of his 
persuasion, might be carried to some insurrection (for they 
seemed to do nothing but by his counsel), judged that it 
might be better to seize him before any insurrection was 
made, and to take him off, than, after affairs were disturbed, 
to repent of his negligence. Thus he, by the jealousy of 
Herod, being sent bound to Machserus, was there put to 
death ; and the Jews thought that, on account of the pun- 
ishment of this person, destruction had befallen the army, 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 243 

God being displeased with Herod." In this passage, while 
Josephus assigns such a reason for John's death as might 
be expected from a courtier, there is an entire coincidence 
as to the historical facts, between his narrative and that of 
the sacred historian. 

Under the Roman government, it was usual for rulers 
of provinces to send to Rome accounts of remarkable trans- 
actions occurring during their administration, which were 
preserved as official documents among the archives of the 
empire. Referring to this custom^ Eusebius says: "Our 
Saviour's resurrection being much talked of throughout 
Palestine, Pilate informed the emperor of it, as likewise of 
his miracles, which he had heard of, and that, being raised 
up after he had been put to death, he was already believed 
by many to be a God." The same fact is further attested 
by Justin Martyr in his first Apology, which in the year 
140 was presented to the Emperor Antoninus Pius and 
the senate of Rome. Having mentioned the crucifixion of 
Jesus, and some of the circumstances of it, he adds: "And 
that these things were so done, you may know from the 
acts made in the time by Pontius Pilate." Tertullian, in 
his Apology, about the year 198, having spoken of our 
Saviour's crucifixion and resurrection, his appearances to 
his disciples, and his ascension to heaven in the sight of the 
same disciples, who were ordained by him to preach the 
Gospel over the world, says : "Of all these things relating 
to Christ, Pilate, in his conscience a Christian, sent an ac- 
count to Tiberius, then emperor." In another part of the 
same Apology he adds : " There was an ancient decree, 
that no one should be received for a deity unless he was 
first approved by the senate. Tiberius, in whose time the 
Christian religion had its rise, having received from Pales- 
tine in Syria an account of such things as manifested our 
Saviour's divinity, proposed to the senate, giving his 
own vote first in his favor, that he should be placed among 



244 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

the gods. The senate refused, because lie had himself de- 
clined that honor. Nevertheless, the emperor persisted in 
his own opinion, and ordered, that if any accused the Chris- 
tians they should he punished." 

The probability that such an official record as is thus 
referred to, would be made, is certainly very great, and as 
great is the improbability that in their Apologies, these 
Christian fathers would have appealed to its testimony, had 
there been the least doubt as to its existence. It was not 
made public for the reason that such accounts were intend- 
ed only for the government. The publication of the acts 
of the senate was forbidden by Augustus. 

Important confirmatory evidence is also derived from 
the writings of opponents to Christianity. 

Celsus, a heathen philosopher, wrote a book against 
Christianity in the second century, during the reign of 
Hadrian (A. D. 118 to 138, soon after the death of St John), 
the title being " The True Word," which was answered by 
Origen. In this work he introduces a Jew declaiming 
against Jesus Christ and against such Jews as were con- 
verted to Christianity. His attack -is conducted not by 
denying the facts contained in the Scriptures, of which he 
all along admits the truth, but by reasoning from such as 
the following topics : That it was absurd to esteem and 
worship one as God, who was acknowledged to have been 
a man, and to have suffered death ; that Jesus Christ in- 
vited sinners to enter the kingdom of God ; that it was in- 
consistent with his supposed dignity to come and save such 
low and despicable creatures as Jews and Christians ; that 
he spake dishonorably and impiously of God ; and that the 
doctrines and precepts of religion are better taught by the 
Greek philosophers than in the Gospels, and without the 
threatenings of God. He has no less than eighty quota- 
tions from the New Testament, and so numerous are his 
references to the life of Christ, that it has been said an 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 245 

abridgment of the evangelic history could be formed from 
them ; beginning with the star in the East and the massacre 
of the innocents, and continuing down to the crucifixion and 
resurrection. It is true, he speaks of these events with re- 
sentment and scorn, but he does not venture to dispute the 
authenticity of the Scripture account of them. His objec- 
tions only prove that these histories and doctrines existed 
antecedently to his cavils. The theory by which he would 
account for that which he cannot deny or disprove, is that 
Jesus, being " brought up obscurely, and obliged to serve 
for hire in Egypt, learned there certain powerful arts, for 
which the Egyptians are renowned ; then returned greatly 
elated with his power, on account of which he declared him- 
self a God." 

Tacitus, the celebrated Roman historian, was born in 
the year 61 or 62. He was praetor of Rome under Donii- 
tian in 88, and consul in the short reign of Nerva in 97. 
In his account of the great fire at Rome in the 10th of 
Nero, about thirty years after our Lord's ascension, he 
says — " To suppress, therefore, this common rumor " (viz., 
that the emperor himself had set fire to the city), "Nero 
procured others to be accused, and inflicted exquisite pun- 
ishments upon those people who were abhorred for their 
crimes and were commonly known by the name of Chris- 
tians. They had their denomination from Christus, who, 
in the reign of Tiberius, was put to death as a criminal by 
the procurator Pontius Pilate. This pernicious supersti- 
tion, though checked for a while, broke out again, and 
sj^read not only over Judea, the source of this evil, but 
reached the oity also, whither flow from all quarters all 
things vile and shameful, and where they find shelter and 
encouragement. At first, they only were apprehended 
who confessed themselves of that sect ; afterwards a vast 
multitude, discovered by them ; all of whom were con- 
demned, not so much for the crime of burning the city, as 



246 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

for their enmity to mankind. Their executions were so 
contrived as to expose them to derision and contempt. 
Some were covered over with the skins of wild beasts, and 
torn to pieces by dogs ; some were crucified ; others, hav- 
ing been daubed over with combustible materials, were set 
up as lights in the night time, and thus burnt to death. 
ISTero made use of his own gardens as a theatre upon this 
occasion, and also exhibited the diversions of the circus, 
sometimes standing in the crowd as a spectator in the habit 
of a charioteer ; at other times driving a chariot himself, 
till at length these men, though really criminal, and de- 
serving exemplary punishment, began to be commiserated 
as people who were destroyed, not out of a regard to the 
public welfare, but only to gratify the cruelty of one man." 

Such is the testimony of Tacitus, who lived in the same 
age with the Apostles, to the principal facts which relate 
to the origin of the Gospel, as well as to its rapid progress. 
He here attests that Jesus Christ was put to death as a 
malefactor, by Pontius Pilate, procurator under Tiberius ; 
that, from Christ, the people called Christians took their 
name ; that this religion had its rise in Judea ; that thence 
it was propagated into other parts of the world, as far as 
Rome, where Christians were very numerous ; and that 
they were reproached and hated, and underwent many and 
grievous sufferings. 

Suetonius, a Roman historian who flourished in the reign 
of the Emperor Trajan, A. D. 116, in his history of the life 
of Claudius, who reigned from the year 41 to 54, says that 
"the emperor banished the Jews from Rome, who were 
continually making disturbances, Christus being their 
leader." The first Christians, being of the Jewish nation, 
were for a while confounded with the rest of that people, 
and shared in the hardships that were imposed on them. 
This account, however, attests what is related in the Acts 
of the Apostles (xviii, 2), that Claudius had commanded all 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 247 

Jews to depart from Rome, when Aquila and Priscilla, two 
Jewish Christians, were compelled to leave that city. In 
the life of Nero, whose reign began in 54, and ended in 68, 
Suetonius says : " The Christians were punished ; a sort of 
men of a new and malignant superstition." 

On the foregoing passage of Tacitus, and in reference to 
the persecution of the Christians under Nero, Gibbon re- 
marks : " The most sceptical criticism is obliged to respect 
the truth of this extraordinary fact, and the integrity of this 
celebrated passage of Tacitus. The former is confirmed by 
the diligent and accurate Suetonius, who mentions the pun- 
ishment which Nero inflicted upon the Christians." Noth- 
ing but. the force of undeniable truth could have wrung so 
ample an admission from such an inveterate enemy of Chris- 
tianity. 

The second great persecution of the Christians is re- 
corded to have taken place in the reign of the Emperor 
Domitian, having begun in the year 81, and terminated in 
the year 96. During that time an interesting and well 
authenticated incident is said to have occurred. Domitian 
made inquiry after the posterity of David, and two men 
were brought before him of that family. " At that time," 
says Hegesippus, " there were yet remaining of the kindred 
of Christ the grandsons of Jude, who was called his brother 
according to the flesh. These some accused as being of the 
race of David, and Evocatus brought them before Domiti- 
anus Caesar ; for he too was afraid of the coming of the 
Christ, as well as Herod." Of these men, the historian 
Gibbon says : " They frankly confessed their royal origin, 
and their near relation to the Messiah ; but they disclaimed 
any temporal views, and professed that his kingdom which 
they devoutly expected, was purely of a spiritual and an- 
gelic nature. When they were examined concerning their 
origin and occupation, they showed their hands, hardened 
with daily labor, and declared that they derived their whole 



248 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

subsistence from the cultivation of a farm near Cocaba, of the 
extent of about twenty-four English acres, and of the value 
of three hundred pounds sterling. The grandsons of St. 
Jude were dismissed with compassion and contempt." 

A remarkable historic testimony to the truth of Chris- 
tianity has been preserved in the correspondence of Trajan 
and Pliny. Trajan became emperor A. D. 98, and in the 
year 100 the third great persecution of the Christians com- 
menced. The younger Pliny was appointed proconsul of 
Bithynia, a province of the Roman empire on the Euxine 
Sea. In that distant region there were now vast numbers 
of Christians, against whom the proconsul, according to the 
emperor's edict, used great severity. Being desirous of 
more full information how to proceed against them, and 
" being moved," as Eusebius says, " at the multitude of 
those who were slain for the faith," he wrote the following 
letter to Trajan, in the year 107, and in the same year re- 
ceived the emperor's rescript : 

"Pliny to the Emperor Trajan, health and happiness. 
It is my constant custom, Sir, to refer myself to you, in all 
matters concerning which I have any doubt. For who can 
better direct me where I hesitate, or instruct me where I 
I am ignorant ? I have never been present at any trials 
of Christians ; so that I know not well what will be the 
subject-matter of punishment or inquiry, or what strict- 
ness ought to be used in either. ~Nor have I been a little 
perplexed to determine whether any difference ought to 
be made upon account of age, or whether the young and 
tender, and the full-grown and robust, ought to be treated 
all alike ; whether repentance should entitle to pardon, or 
whether all who have once been Christians ought to be 
punished, though they are no longer so ; whether the name 
itself, although no crimes be detected, or crimes only be- 
longing to the name, ought to be punished. Concerning 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 249 

all these things I am in doubt. In the mean time, I have 
taken this course with all who have been brought before 
me, and have been accused as Christians. I have put the 
question to them, whether they were Christians? Upon 
their confessing to me that they were, I repeated the ques- 
tion a second and a third time, threatening also to punish 
them with death. Such as still persisted I ordered away to 
be punished ; for it was no doubt with me, whatever might 
be the nature of their opinion, that contumacy and inflexible 
obstinacy ought to be punished. There were others of the 
same infatuation, whom, because they are Roman citizens, 
I have noted down to be sent to the city. In a short time, 
the crime spreading itself, even whilst under persecution, as 
is usual in such cases, divers sorts of people came in my way. 
An information was presented to me, without mentioning 
the author, containing the names of many persons, who, 
upon examination, denied that they were Christians, or had 
ever been so ; who repeated after me an invocation of the 
gods, and with wine and frankincense made supplication to 
your image, which, for that purpose, I had caused to be 
brought and set before them, together with the statues of 
the deities. Moreover, they reviled the name of Christ, 
none of which things, as is said, they who are really Chris- 
tians can by any means be compelled to do. These, there- 
fore, I thought proper to discharge. Others were named by 
an informer, who at first confessed themselves Christians, 
and afterwards denied it ; the rest said they had been Chris- 
tians, but had left them some three years ago, some longer, 
and one or more above twenty years. They all worshipped 
your image, and the statues of the gods ; these also reviled 
Christ. They affirmed that the whole of their fault or error 
lay in this, that they were wont to nfeet together on a stated 
da}', before it was light, and sing among themselves alter- 
nately a hymn to Christ as God ; and bind themselves by an 
oath not to the commission of any wickedness, but not to 
11* 



250 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

be guilty of theft, or robbery, or adultery, never to falsify 
their word, nor to deny a pledge committed to them, when 
called upon to return it. When these things were performed, 
it was their custom to separate, and then to come together 
again to a meal, which they ate in common, without any 
disorder ; but this they had forborne since the publication 
of my edict, by which, according to your commands, I pro- 
hibited assemblies. After receiving this account, I judged 
it the more necessary to examine, and that by torture, two 
maid-servants, which were called ministers. But I have 
discovered nothing beside a bad and excessive superstition. 
Suspending, therefore, all judicial proceedings, I have re- 
course to you for advice ; for it has appeared unto me a 
matter highly deserving consideration, especially upon ac- 
count of the great number of persons who are in danger of 
suffering ; for many of all ages, and every rank, of both 
sexes likewise, are accused, and will be accused. Nor has 
the contagion of the superstition seized cities only, but the 
lesser towns also, and the open country. Nevertheless it 
seems to me that it may be restrained and corrected. It is 
certain that the temples, which were almost forsaken, begin 
to be more frequented. And the sacred solemnities, after a 
long intermission, are revived. Victims likewise are every- 
where bought up, whereas for some time there were few 
purchasers. Whence it is easy to imagine what numbers 
of men might be reclaimed, if pardon were granted to those 
who repent." 

To this letter of Pliny the following reply was returned 
by Trajan: 

" Trajan to Pliny, health and happiness. You have 
taken the right method, my Pliny, in your proceedings with 
those who have been brought before you as Christians ; for 
it is impossible to establish any one rule that shall hold 
universally. They are not to be sought for. If any are 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 251 

brought before you, and are convicted, they ought to be 
punished. However, he that denies his being a Christian, 
and makes it evident in fact ; that is, by supplicating our 
gods ; though he be suspected to have been so formerly, 
let him be pardoned upon repentance. But in no case of 
crime whatever, may a bill of information be received, with- 
out being signed by him who presents it ; for that would 
be a dangerous precedent, and unworthy of my govern- 
ment." 

The date of this memorable correspondence was about 
seventy years after the death of Christ. " We have herein," 
says Mr. Haldane, " a public and authentic attestation to 
the amazing growth of the Christian religion, which had 
made such progress in the remote country of Bithynia, that 
the pagan temples were, according to Pliny, ' almost for- 
saken ; ■ he also mentions that there had been Christians in 
that country twenty years before. Their blameless lives, 
the purity of their religious worship, their meeting together 
on a certain day, their adoration of Jesus Christ as God, 
their obedience to their civil rulers, in giving up what they 
did not consider to be enjoined by Divine authority, and 
their fortitude in suffering, and steady perseverance in the 
faith of Christ, are all unequivocally attested by their per- 
secutors." 

The Emperor Hadrian succeeded his kinsman Trajan, 
A. D. 117. As the edict of Trajan had not been repealed, 
the Christians still suffered persecution under his reign, al- 
though he issued no new edict against them. Upon occa- 
sion, however, of the Apologies which Quadratus and Aris- 
tides presented to him at Athens, in the year 128, that per- 
secution was moderated. Of Aristides, Jerome says : " He 
was a most eloquent Athenian philosopher, and in his for- 
mer habit he presented to the Emperor Hadrian, at the same 
time with Quadratus, a book containing an account of our 



252 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

sect, that is, an Apology for the Christians which is still ex- 
tant, a monument with the learned of his ingenuity." This 
Apology is now lost. To Quadratus was ascribed the gift 
of prophecy, and he is said to have been " a disciple of the 
apostles." The following is all that remains of the Apology 
which he presented to Hadrian : " The works of the Sa- 
viour were always conspicuous, for they were real, both they 
that were healed and they that were raised from the dead ; 
who were seen not only when they were healed or raised, 
but for a long time afterwards ; nor only whilst he dwelt 
upon this earth, but also after his departure, and for a good 
while after it, insomuch that some of them have reached to 
our times." 

We will now again call up testimony which history has 
preserved, contributed by decided enemies of the Christian 
faith, Porphyry and the Emperor Julian. 

Porphyry was a pupil of Longinus, who flourished in the 
third century. He wrote a book against the Scriptures, 
w T hieh was burnt in the following century, by order of Con- 
stantine, and afterwards by that of Theodosius the Younger. 
He admits the working of miracles by the apostles, but 
ascribes them, like Celsus, to magical arts. This was the 
common excuse for rejecting the Gospel, supported as it 
was by these wonders, which could not be controverted. 
A work containing such objections deserved only contempt, 
and hardly needed the edict of the civil power for its sup- 
pression. It was already fully met by our Lord's reply to a 
similar taunt : If Satan sustain the cause which can only 
prevail by his overthrow, how shall his kingdom stand ? 

Julian, A. D. 361, mentions Paul by name, and treat3 
of the first chapter of St. John. While he speaks con- 
temptuously of Christ, as having made a few proselytes from 
among the dregs of the people, and as not having been 
known for more than three hundred years, he admits the 
cure of the halt and the blind, and the exorcism of demo- 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 253 

niacs at Bethesda and Bethany. His whole book is a bitter 
invective against the Christians. He admits the holy life 
of the Christians, and holds up their charity to imitation. 
Their zeal, their fortitude, their pure notions of religion 
receive his honorable mention; and while his arguments 
against the Gospel are perfectly harmless, he has unde- 
signedly borne important testimony to the truth of many 
of its facts. 

How complete the chain of evidence that has been 
adduced! Not only have we the contemporaneous narra- 
tives of friends ; but enemies, Jews and Pagans, the Roman 
emperor and senate and Pilate, the very judge who con- 
demned our Lord, all bear witness that there was such a 
person as Jesus Christ, that he lived at the time the Gos- 
pel relates, that he wrought miracles, that he was crucified, 
and that he had numerous disciples and followers, of whose 
affairs many of them make mention. They cannot deny 
the facts — are forced to admit that miracles were wrought 
by our Lord, and can only allege against them the absurd 
cavil that has been noticed — that they were the result of 
magic arts. 

This chain of evidence might be greatly lengthened ; 
but enough has been given to warrant the assertion that 
Ancient History, as far as it extends, is a witness to the 
truth of Holy Scripture, and that no discovery in the annals 
of the past can disturb the solid masonry of fact on which 
it rests. I will only add a brief notice of two most inter- 
esting historical monuments, which have come down to us 
from the very times of the New Testament. 

On what was the Via Sacra in ancient Rome, still 
stands in proud decay a Triumphal Arch beneath which, it 
is said, no Jew will pass, though it spans one of the thor- 
oughfares of the city, but turns from it in silent aversion. 

Of this majestic ruin, a modern traveller says: "The 
voice of the sceptic has nothing to say of Him with whom 



254 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

is no variableness nor shadow of turning." But the very 
stones do speak. Who could have thought that Domitian, 
that cruel persecutor of the Christians, should erect an 
arch which should confirm for ages the veracity of that 
God whom they worshipped? But God brings to nought 
the wisdom of men. 

We are told that this arch of triumph was erected by 
Domitian and the Roman people in honor of Titus for his 
conquest of Jerusalem. On the interior are two bass-re- 
liefs. On one Titus is represented borne on a triumphal 
car, which "Rome, under the figure of a woman, conducts; 
whilst victory crowns the conqueror. On the opposite side 
is represented the triumphal pomp with the Jewish spoils : 
first the prisoners ; then the table of the shewbread with 
the sacred vessels ; the silver trumpets ; the candlestick 
with seven branches ; the ark of the covenant, which the 
Roman soldiers, crowned with the wreath of victory, bear 
on their shoulders. 

" Who that gazes on that relic of Roman grandeur can 
avoid recalling the sound of that voice which once said : 
c Seest thou these great buildings ? there shall not be left 
one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down ? ' " 

The other historical monument referred to as having 
come down to us from the very times of the New Testa- 
ment is that of the Jew of the present day, bearing as he 
does incontrovertible evidence, in every line of his oriental 
features, of the authenticity of his descent through un- 
counted generations. In him we have a living argument 
of the truth of divine revelation ; in him we behold a literal 
fulfilment of the prophecies ; with him may we ascend the 
stream of time until, by an emanation from that same light 
which was to his nation " a pillar of cloud by day and a 
jDillar of fire by night," we witness the division of the sea ; 
the angels? food ; the rock that followed them ; the opening 
of the earth and the fire from heaven ; the parting of the 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 255 

waters of Jordan ; the walls of Jericho ; the sun standing 
still in the valley of Ajalou. Their whole career as a 
people, from Egypt down to the destruction of Jerusalem 
by Titus and their final dispersion, is full of wonders. Yet, 
perhaps, there is nothing more marvellous in their history 
than their present condition, scattered as we find them 
through almost every habitable portion of the globe. 
Eighteen centuries have now passed away since they ceased 
to exist as a state, and when, according to the ordinary 
laws which determine such events, they ought to have dis- 
appeared among the mass of nations. Their oppressors, 
the Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Syro-Macedonians 
and Romans, have all in their turn long ago been razed 
from the list of principalities and powers. Since the ex- 
tinction of their polity, the Byzantine empire has succeeded 
to the Roman and the Mussulman to the Byzantine ; Goths 
and Vandals have expelled the ancient settlers of more 
than half of the kingdoms of Europe, and have themselves 
been succeeded by fresh invaders ; all have changed again 
and again their names, laws, dynasties, character, languages, 
and religion. Yet, during the whole of that immense pe- 
riod, the fallen Jews, without a home or a government, 
unacknowledged in most parts of Europe, and scarcely tol- 
erated in some, hated and persecuted by all, have still pre- 
served their faith, their institutions, their exclusive habits, 
and their numbers entire. How shall this extraordinary 
vitality be explained, except as the fulfilment of the prom- 
ise of God that He would " not make a full end of His 
people " — that He " would not destroy them utterly," and 
that even in their lowest estate, He would not " break His 
covenant with them ? " Truly might the great Conde 
have said, in reply to certain infidel arguments, that u it 
was perfectly vain to assail the credibility of the Christian 
revelation, so long as so singular a miracle as that of the 
existing Jewish people could be alleged in its suj^port." 



CHAPTEE YIII. 

OBJECTIONS AND EEPLIES. 

The opponents of Revelation have endeavored to in- 
validate the authority and impugn the credibility of the 
sacred writers, by the charge of discrepancy and contradic- 
tion in their statements. As truth is one and must always 
be consistent with itself, if this charge could be substan- 
tiated, it would at once annul the claim of inspiration for 
the Bible. When we apply this test to the Koran of Ma- 
homet, we find that its pages contain more than one hun- 
dred and fifty palpable contradictions, admitted even by 
learned Mussulmen, who account for them by saying that 
in all these instances the Almighty changed his mind! 
But of the numerous alleged contradictions that have been 
brought against the Bible, it may safely be affirmed that 
there is not one of them that is not capable of a rational 
solution. Through the mistakes of transcribers, errors 
no doubt at times crept into manuscripts of the sacred 
writings, before the invention of printing, and such may 
also be found in printed copies; but the contradictions 
objected, are only apparent, not real. The slightest ex- 
amination will show that the greater portion of these are 
frivolous, while the difficulties of the remainder will vanish 
upon a more profound acquaintance with the facts.* "It 
is by no means uncommon " (says Professor Lee), "to find 
in the accounts of two perfectly honest historians referring 
to the same events from different points of view, certain 



OBJECTIONS AND REPLIES. 257 

peculiarities in the structure of their compositions, which, 
when noticed, at once reconcile the seeming variance which 
such peculiarities may have occasioned ; or some fact may 
have been omitted which lends an air of opposition to their 
statements — an opposition which the mention of the omitted 
fact by a third writer instantly clears up." The following 
solution of a difficulty in ordinary history, together with 
the application of the principle on which it rests, to a paral- 
lel case in the Evangelical record, will amply confirm what 
has just been stated. 

Aristobulus, the friend of Alexander the Great, and 
who watched by his death bed, relates that he died on the 
30th of the Macedonian month Dsesius. On the other hand, 
Eumenes and Diodotus, who kept the journal of Alexander, 
and who recount the progress of his malady, place his death 
on the evening of the 28th of the same month. Here is an 
obvious variance in statement, and yet no critic has for 
a moment considered that there is any real contradiction, 
although the solutions which have been given are very dif- 
ferent. Thus, it is shown by some, how the variance will 
disappear if we call to mind the manner of counting the 
days of the month by the Greeks ; while the explanation 
of another writer is founded upon the difference in the 
point of time from which the beginning of the day was 
reckoned — whether from sunrise as at Babylon, or from 
sunset according to Grecian usage. Other explanations 
are also supplied, and any one among them is considered 
to remove every appearance of contradiction. The history 
of the Gospel harmony supplies an example exactly parallel. 
The case is one of peculiar interest, and from a very early 
period it has presented a difficulty to Christian apologists. 
I allude to the statements of St. Mark and St. John as to 
the hour of Christ's passion — " a question," says St. Augus- 
tine, " which, above all others, is wont to stir up the shame- 
lessness of the contentious, and to disturb the unskilfulness 



258 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

of the weak." St. Augustine himself proposed two methods 
whereby the accounts might be reconciled ; and, while ad- 
mitting the difficulties with which his suggestions were 
encumbered, he lays down the principle for which I now 
contend. Referring to a supposed objection to one of 
his solutions, he asks: "If we both alike believe the 
Evangelists, do you point out how their accounts can 
be otherwise reconciled, and I will acquiesce most cheer- 
fully ; for I love not my own opinion, but the truth of the 
Gospel. Until some other explanation is discovered, this 
of mine shall suffice ; and when that other is demonstrated, 
I too will adopt it." It has been reserved for modern times 
to suggest a solution which has been almost universally 
accepted, and which removes every shade of difficulty from 
the case: St. Mark asserts that our Lord was crucified 
at "the third hour," or at nine o'clock in the forenoon; 
while, according to St. John, Pilate " about the sixth hour " 
was still sitting in judgment. The explanation of this ap- 
parent discordance in time — an explanation which even 
Strauss, while exaggerating " the difficulty " to the utmost, 
allows to be " possible " — is, that St. John has given the 
hour according to the Roman calculation of time, which 
counted, as we do, from midnight; while St. Mark adheres 
to the Jewish custom of counting from sunrise. 

And thus it will be found that, in all the apparent dis- 
crepancies of Scripture, the difficulty arises from our not 
having the due which unites the different statements. As 
soon as that is obtained, their harmony is established. 

Another sceptical objection is founded upon the alleged 
collision between the statements of Scripture and those of 
Profane History. It is not to be denied that such instances 
are to be found, but what can be more unfair than to take 
it for granted that the sacred narrative must be necessarily 
false ? Did a tribunal of appeal exist, in the shape of au- 
thentic, reliable records of those times, it might then be 



OBJECTIONS AND KErLIES. 259 

satisfactorily shown, in such cases of contradiction, on which 
side lay the error. Without such a tribunal, when proba- 
bilities are weighed, and the characters of the writers are 
considered, the truth of the Biblical statements cannot be 
successfully impugned. 

The following are instances of what at first appeared 
to be historical discrepancies, but in which subsequent dis- 
covery has vindicated the minute accuracy of the sacred 
writers. 

It is related in the Second Book of Kings (xx. 12), and 
in the historical chapters of Isaiah (xxxix. 1), that Merodach 
Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a present to 
Hezekiah, because he heard that he had been sick. As 
previous to the publication of the Chronicle of Eusebius 
in the early part of this century, there was no ■other known 
record of such a monarch, it was objected that he was a 
mythical personage, and moreover that Babylon at that 
time was merely a dependent province of the Assyrian 
empire. A fragment of Berosus, however, preserved in 
that chronicle, supplies the desired information and re- 
moves all the difficulty. We learn from it that Merodach 
Baladan was an usurper, who reigned independently at 
Babylon for six months, and was then overthrown by Sen- 
nacherib. From another passage of the same Berosus, it 
has been sought to disprove the historical narrative of 
Belshazzar in Daniel. Berosus makes the last Babylonian 
monarch absent from the city at the time of its captivity by 
the Persians, and also speaks of him as taken prisoner after- 
wards at Bersippa, and as then not slain, but treated w T ith 
much kindness by Cyrus. The two narratives of the fall 
of Babylon were thus in appearance w r holly irreconcilable ; 
and some were driven to suppose two falls of Babylon, to 
escape the seeming contrariety. But out of all this confu- 
sion and uncertainty, a small and simple but most important 
discovery, which was made by Sir Henry Rawlinson, from 



280 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

documents obtained at Mughitr, the ancient Ur of the Chal- 
dees, has delivered us. From these he learned that Nabo- 
nadius, the last of the kings of Babylon, associated with 
himself on the throne during the later years of his reign his 
son Bel-shar-uzar, and allowed him the royal title. That 
this was the prince who conducted the defence of Babylon, 
and who was slain in the massacre that followed upon its 
capture, cannot be doubted; while his father, who was at 
the time in Borsippa, surrendered and experienced the clem- 
ency which was generally shown to fallen kings by the Per- 
sians. Nor is this all. The discovery of Belshazzar's posi- 
tion as joint-ruler of the empire, throws light upon another 
passage in the narrative which had been the cause of some 
perplexity, and thus imparts additional confirmation to its 
historical credibility. We are therein told that Belshazzar 
promised to the successful interpreter of the handwriting 
on the wall, that he should be promoted to be the third 
ruler in the kingdom. Why his position should not be the 
same as it seems to have been under Nebuchadnezzar, or as 
that of Joseph was in Egypt, or of Mordecai in Persia, it 
would have been impossible to tell until the above discovery. 
But as there were two joint sovereigns reigning at the time, 
it is now seen that the reward proffered by Belshazzar was 
the highest position tenable by a subject. 

In the work I have already quoted, Professor Lee gives 
a remarkable instance of the minute accuracy of St. Luke, 
which he prefaces " by a parallel example illustrative of the 
apparent contradictions so constantly to be met with in or- 
dinary history. The medals struck for the coronation of 
Louis XXV give a different day from that which all con- 
temporary historians agree in fixing for the date of that 
event. Of all these writers, one only has noticed a circum- 
stance which accounts for this discrepancy, for he alone 
mentions that the coronation had been appointed to take 
place on the day given by the medals 5 which were accord- 



OBJECTIONS AND REPLIES. 261 

inglv prepared, — but that circumstances caused a delay till 
the date assigned by the historians. Nothing can be more 
simple than this ; and yet, in a thousand years, had. no such 
explanation been given, antiquarians would have been sadly 
perplexed in their efforts to reconcile the contradiction. 
Let us now turn to the parallel case in the Acts of the 
Apostles. St. Luke in the thirteenth chapter, gives the 
title of Proconsul to the Governor of Cyprus. In the divi- 
sion, however, of the Roman Empire by Augustus, this 
island had been reserved for his own jurisdiction, and, conse- 
quently, its governor must have borne the rank of procurator ; 
— that of proconsul being appropriated to those who ruled 
the provinces which the emperor had ceded to the senate. 
The title here assigned by St. Luke to Sergius Paulus had. 
for a long time perplexed commentators, who knew not how 
to reconcile the statement of the sacred historian with the 
assumed facts of the case. Some coins, however, were 
found bearing the effigy of the Emperor Claudius ; and in 
the centre of the reverse there appears the word KYLTPION, 
while the surrounding legend gives the title in question of 
proconsul to an individual who must have been the immedi- 
ate successor or predecessor of Sergius Paulus. In addition 
to this evidence, a passage has been pointed, out in the 
writings of Dion Cassius, who mentions that Augustus, sub- 
sequently to his original settlement, had. changed Cyprus 
and Gallia Narbonensis into senatorial provinces ; the his- 
torian adding, as if with the design of establishing St. Luke's 
accuracy, " And so it came to pass that proconsuls began to 
be sent to these nations also." Had the writings of Dio 
Cassius perished amid the wreck of ancient literature, and 
the coins alluded to never been found, we should unques- 
tionably have seen this hypothetical blunder of the inspired 
historian foremost among the array of cases adduced by 
such writers as Strauss. Is not the Christian apologist, 
therefore, fully justified in deprecating the precipitancy of 



262 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

criticism ? Has he not ample grounds for maintaining that 
difficulties, such as those we have considered, arise from our 
ignorance of the whole of the case ; and that we have good 
reason to expect that they will eventually disappear as sim- 
ilar evidence accumulates. 

Equally untenable is the sceptical objection which has 
been drawn from the silence of Profane History as to some 
of the facts of the New Testament. Of the leading and 
more important of those facts, it is not true ; for as we 
have seen, they are abundantly corroborated in the pages 
of Tacitus, Suetonius, and others. For the omission of 
some others, such as the massacre of the innocents and the 
supernatural darkness at the crucifixion, a sufficient reply 
is furnished in the following extract from the recently pub- 
lished diary of Varnhagen von Ense : 

" Humboldt confirms the opinion I have more than once 
expressed, that too much must not be inferred from the 
silence of authors. He adduces three important and per- 
fectly undeniable facts, as to which one finds no evidence 
in places where one would naturally, above all others, ex- 
pect to find it. In the records of Barcelona there is not a 
trace of the triumphal entry made by Columbus ; in Marco 
Polo, no mention of the great wall of China ; and in the 
archives of Portugal, nothing about the voyage of Ameri- 
go Vespucci in the service of that crown." — History of the 
Geography of the New World, part iv, p. 160, et seq. 

To this it may be added that Pliny makes no mention 
whatever of the destruction of Herculaneum and Pompeii 
— large and populous cities. Even Tacitus merely glances 
at the event in these words : " Haustae aut obrutse urbes " 
— cities were consumed or burned. Suetonius is silent as to 
the cities, though the eruption is incidentally mentioned. 
Martial has a slight allusion to them ; and Dion Cassius, 
about one hundred and fifty years after Pliny, adverts to 
the traditional account of them. "A multitude of things," 



OBJECTIONS AND REPLIES. 263 

gays Montfaucon, " are daily found out, which have been 
hitherto unobserved and not mentioned ; such as the tem- 
ple of Mithras, in the Viminal vale, of which not one word 
is met with in authors." 

The weakness and fallacy of the above objections having 
been demonstrated, let us proceed to examine two argu- 
ments in behalf of the historic verity and divine authority 
of the Holy Scriptures, drawn from their internal evidence, 
which cannot fail to carry irresistible conviction to the 
mind of the earnest and sincere inquirer after truth. 

The first of these is the wonderful unity and harmony 
of design which is found in the Bible, from the beginning 
of Genesis to the close of the Apocalypse. 

The absurdity of supposing that this could be the effect 
of fraud is thus strongly urged by Mr. Haldane. He says : 
" Let any set of men combine to write such a book as the 
Bible. Let their plan be laid so as to extend through a 
period of fifteen hundred years. Let those who shall first 
enter upon the work obtain others to succeed them during 
that space of time. Let them write history, poetry, the- 
ology, and prophecies concerning the state of the world. 
Let them at length procure some one to come forward in 
whom all that they have written shall find its accomplish- 
ment. Let him be born in the place they had foretold, of 
the family they had singled out, at the exact period they 
had predicted. Let him be exhibited in the most critical 
situations, in the midst of enlightened, powerful, and de- 
termined adversaries, while they still uphold him as perfect, 
and defy his enemies to prove the contrary. Let his own 
death be a part of their plan, which he himself shall foretell. 
Let a number of persons arise immediately afterwards to 
carry forward the design, charge the government under 
which he suffered as his murderers, affirm that he is alive, 
and has given them convincing evidence that he will re- 
ward them in a future world. Let these men support their 



264 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

doctrines by an appeal to miracles openly performed before 
enemies armed with civil power ; and let them adhere to 
their testimony at the expense of life, and all things dear 
in this world. Let them promulgate a new religion and 
code of laws, completely subversive of every existing re- 
ligion on earth, and directly opposed to the indulgence of 
the strongest propensities of the human heart. Let this re- 
ligion, by the force of its own evidence, win its way through 
the world, overthrow every opposing system, extend its 
triumphs, and finally establish itself in the most civilized 
nations, in spite of the most learned, the most determined, 
and the most powerful adversaries ; and let the character 
of the leader, as set forward by his associates, be thus vin- 
dicated as ' the light of the nations.' Who does not see 
the total impracticability, the absolute absurdity of such an 
attempt ? As soon might men of understanding be induced 
to climb up to the stars, as to propose to themselves such a 
scheme." 1 

Yet all this is the true and wondrous story of that Book 
which Christians claim to be from God. 

The Bible contains sixty-six books, to the composition of 
which thirty different persons have contributed. These 
books were written amidst the strangest diversity of time, 
place, and condition, — among the sandy deserts of Arabia, 
the fields and hills of Palestine, in the courts of the Jewish 
Temple, in the palace of Shushan, in the dungeons of Rome, 
and one of them in a lonely island of the iEgean Sea. 
They were written in a variety of forms, — in history, biog- 
raphy, and parable ; proverbs, poems, and letters. They 
were written by persons occupying various conditions in 
life — princes and peasants, warriors and fishermen, learned 
men and unlearned. And from the time that Moses took 
his pen to write the story of the creation, to the record by 

1 Haldane's Evidences of Christianity, vol. ii, p. 486. 



OBJECTIONS AND REPLIES. 265 

St. John of the visions which he saw in Patmos, a period 
of fifteen hundred years had intervened. 

Under such circumstances, collusion and preconcert were 
utterly impossible. Yet so far from one contradicting what 
another inculcates, there is on the contrary the most per- 
fect harmony. Every book both in the Old and New Tes- 
taments is a link in the same golden chain. They are one 
uniform whole, though beginning at the creation and ex- 
tending to the consummation of all things. " As in Beetho- 
ven's matchless music there runs one idea, worked out 
through all the changes of measure and of key ; now al- 
most hidden, now breaking out in rich natural melody, 
whispered in the treble, murmured in the bass, dimly sug- 
gested in the prelude, but growing clearer and clearer as 
the work proceeds, winding gradually back till it ends in 
the key in which it began, and closes in triumphant har- 
mony ; so throughout the whole Bible there runs one 
great idea : man's ruin by sin and his redemption by 
grace ; in a word, Jesus Christ the Saviour. This runs 
through the Old Testament, that prelude to the New; 
dimly promised at the fall, and more clearly to Abraham ; 
typified in the ceremonies of the law; all the events of 
sacred history paving the way for his coming; his descent 
proved in the genealogies of Ruth and Chronicles ; spoken 
of as Shiloh by Jacob, as the Star by Balaam, as the 
Prophet by Moses; the David of the Psalms; the Re- 
deemer looked for by Job ; the Beloved of the Song of 
Songs. We find him in the sublime strains of the lofty 
Isaiah, in the writings of the tender Jeremiah, in the mys- 
teries of the contemplative Ezekiel, in the visions of the 
beloved Daniel, the great idea growing clearer and clearer 
as the time drew on. Then the full harmony broke out in 
the song of the angels : ' Glory to God in the highest, and 
on earth peace, good will towards men.' And evangelists 
and apostles taking up the theme, the strain closes in the 
12 



266 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

same key in which, it began — the devil, who troubled the 
first paradise, forever excluded from the second ; man re- 
stored to the favor of God, and Jesus Christ the key-note 
of the whole." 

" The silver sounding instruments did meet 
With the base murmur of the water's fall ; 
The water's fall with difference discreet, 

Now soft, now loud, unto the wind did call ; 

The gentle warbling wind low answered to all." — Spenser. 

Does not this wondrous unison make it evident that the 
Bible must have had its origin in the infinite Mind of that 
God who sees the end from the beginning, and who is with- 
out variableness or shadow of turning — from eternity to 
eternity the same ? Truly might the poet ask : 

" Whence but from Heaven could men unskill'd in arts, 
In several ages born, in several parts, 
Weave such agreeing truths ? or how, or why, 
Should all conspire to cheat us with a lie ? 
Unask'd their pains, ungrateful their advice, 
Starving their gain, and martyrdom their price." — Drtden. 

Another argument of hardly less weight has been drawn 
from what have been called the " undesigned coinci- 
dences " of the Bible. These, it has been said, " involve 
a test of truth which is acknowledged almost instinctively, 
by the human mind, and which every day's experience 
serves to strengthen and to impress ; a test which advo- 
cates are always glad to seize upon and to urge whenever 
they have it in their power, and judges and juries are not 
less ready to acknowledge ; and no one who observes the 
state of his own mind, or that of others, in the reception of 
evidence, can shut his eyes to the fact, how much more 
strongly coincidences, which come out accidentally, and 
are free from all suspicion of collusion, prevail in the estab- 
lishment of a fact, than the most exact agreement in points, 



OBJECTIONS AND REPLIES. 267 

which would naturally have presented themselves before- 
hand, as prominent features of the story, and necessary to 
be shaped and fitted by those who were fabricating a false- 
hood." 

A few of these coincidences gleaned from the numerous 
collections made by Paley and Blunt, will be sufficient to 
show that the Bible is its own witness. 

Thus, in his account of the crucifixion, St. Matthew tells 
us that " the soldiers smote Jesus with the palms of their 
hands, saying, Prophesy unto us, thou Christ, Who is he 
that smote thee ? " And in this challenge there seems 
nothing very difficult. There is apparently neither force 
nor meaning in the insult, if Christ had the offender before 
his eyes. But when we learn from St. Luke (xxii. 64), that 
" the men that held Jesus blindfolded him " before they 
asked him to prophesy who it was that smote him, we dis- 
cover what St. Matthew intended to communicate, namely, 
that they proposed this test of his divine mission, whether, 
without the use of sight, he could tell who it was that struck 
him. 

All the evangelists agree in telling that when the high 
priest's officers came out to arrest Jesus, Peter drew a 
sword, and smote off a servant's ear. And yet both St. 
Matthew and St. Mark agree in relating, that when Christ's 
persecutors sought all sorts of evidences against Him, so as 
to make out a case before the Roman Governor, they could 
procure none. But is it not very strange, that when the 
high priest had in his own palace such a striking proof of 
the violent character and dangerous designs of these Gali- 
leans, he should not have called as a witness his own 
wounded servant ? Had we possessed no information be- 
yond the narratives of St. Matthew and St. Mark, this 
would have been a flagrant difficulty. You say that " the 
whole effort of the priests was to prejudice Pilate against 
Jesus, as a seditious and turbulent character ; but they 



268 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

could substantiate nothing." Why was not this recent and 
conclusive witness forthcoming? Especially, when Jesus 
said to Pilate, " My kingdom is not of this world ; if my 
kingdom were of this world, then would my servants Jight, 
that I should not be delivered to the Jews," — why did 
none of his accusers reply, " Yes, but your servants did 
fight, and one of them has inflicted a wound on the sacred 
person of the high priest's servant" ? Now had we possessed 
no Gospels except these two, we could not have accounted 
for so strange an oversight on the part of the priestly fac- 
tion. But St. Luke mentions a circumstance which suffi- 
ciently explains it. From his account we find that as soon 
as Peter smote off the ear Jesus healed it again ; and by 
doing this he effectually disqualified the wounded servant 
from appearing as a witness against him. The priests were 
in this dilemma. If next morning they produced the ser- 
vant as a proof of the violence of Christ and his followers, 
how could Pilate credit them ? That wound was never in- 
flicted overnight, or it could not be healed so soon. Or if, 
to explain this latter circumstance, they acknowledged that 
Christ had instantaneously healed it, they would at once 
have trod on dangerous ground, and would have given 
Pilate another reason for suspecting — what he was already 
very apt to surmise — the supernatural character of his 
prisoner. 

In St. Matthew (viii. 16) we read, that "when the even 
was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed 
with devils, and he cast out the spirits with his word, and 
healed all that were sick." But why was it evening when 
they brought to Jesus these demoniacs and sick persons ? 
From St. Mark (i. 21-32), we find that it was the Sabbath- 
day; and from St. Luke (xiii. 14), we find that the Jews 
thought it sinful for " men to come and be healed on the 
Sabbath-day." But we also know that the Jewish Sabbath 
ceased at sunset ; so that when the evening was come the 



OBJECTIONS AND REPLIES. 269 

people would feel no scruple in bringing their afflicted 
friends to Jesus to be healed. But observe how far we 
have to travel before we can complete Matthew's simple 
statement. He merely mentions that it was in the evening 
Jesus wrought these cures; and had we possessed Mat- 
thew's narrative alone, we might have laid no particular 
stress upon the time of day. But we go on to Mark, and 
we find that it was the Sabbath evening, u when the sun was 
set." And we go on to Luke, and find, though in a totally 
different connection, that these Jews would have thought it 
very wicked to carry the sick or to accept a cure on the 
Sabbath. 

Again, the Evangelist St. John tells us (vi. 5), that on 
one occasion, when surrounded by a weary multitude, 
Jesus said : " Whence shall we buy bread that these may 
eat ? " And in putting this question he addressed himself 
to Philip. But John hints no reason why he should have 
put this inquiry to Philip rather than to any other apostle. 
Luke, however, mentions (ix. 10) that the place was a desert 
near to Bethsaida ; and John himself happens to have men- 
tioned, in the opening of his Gospel (i. 44), that Bethsaida 
was the city of Philip. * And laying these three insulated 
passages together, we see how natural it was to put the 
question, "Where is bread to be bought?" to one ac- 
quainted with the neighborhood. Had we not possessed 
St. John's Gospel, we should never have known that such 
a question was asked ; and had we not possessed St. Luke's 
Gospel, we should never have seen the special propriety of 
asking it of Philip. 

Of these latent harmonies of Holy Scripture, Dr. James 
Hamilton has unanswerably said : " It is just because the 
particulars are so minute that the coincidence is so valuable. 
They are just such trifles as a true historian is apt to omit, 
and just such trifles that a fabricator would never think of 
applying. These delicate agreements of one evangelist 



270 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

with another show that their story is an extract from the 
Book of Truth, — a leaf from the volume of actual occur- 
rences, — a derivation from a counterpart original. And 
though all coeval literature had perished, — though all the 
external confirmations were destroyed, — though all the 
monuments of antiquity were annihilated, strong in its in- 
trinsic truthfulness, the New Testament would still hold its 
lofty place — a tower of self-sustaining integrity. And though 
the efforts of enmity were to succeed as they have signally 
failed, — though learned hostility were to undermine its 
documentary foundations, and blow up that evidence of 
manuscripts and early versions on which it securely reposes, 
so finely do its facts fit into one another, so strongly are 
its several portions clamped together, and in the penetra- 
tion and interfusion through all its parts of its ultimate in- 
spiring Authorship, into such a homogeneous structure has 
it consolidated, that it would come down again on its own 
basis, shifted, but nowise shattered. Such a book God has 
made the Bible, that, whatever theories wax popular, 
or whatever systems explode, " the Scripture cannot be 
broken." 



CHAPTER IX. 

SACKED GEOGRAPHY — TOPOGRAPHICAL ACCURACY OF THE 
INSPIRED WRITERS. 

" Those holy fields 
Over whose acres walk'd those blessed feet, 
Which eighteen hundred years ago were nail'd 
For our advantage, on the bitter cross." — First Part K. Henry IV. 

" The pathways of Thy land are little changed 
Since thou wert there ; 
The busy world through other ways has ranged 
And left these bare. 

" The rocky path still climbs the glowing steep 
Of Olivet; 
Though rains of two millenniums wear it deep, 
Men tread it yet. 

" And as" when gazing, Thou didst weep o'er them, 
From height to height, 
The white roofs of discrown'd Jerusalem 
Burst on our sight. 

v - The waves have washed fresh sands upon the shore 
Of Galilee ; 
But chisell'd in the hillsides evermore 
Thy paths we see. 

" Man has not changed them in that slumb'ring land, 
Nor time effaced ; 
Where Thy feet trod to bless, we still may stand ; 
All can be traced." — TJie Tliree Wakings, 

Much has been written by philosophic historians respect- 
ing the correspondency which is alleged to exist between 
the scenery, the features, and boundaries of countries and 



272 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

the national characteristics of the peoples who inhabit them. 
And in the case of nations such as the Greeks and Romans, 
who have played a great part on the world's stage, it is 
maintained that a prophetic forecast of their destiny can 
be read in the hills, the plains, the rivers and the seas, 
which cradled and fostered their birth and infancy. This 
is especially true of the local features of that land, which 
was the divinely appointed home of the chosen people and 
the cradle of a faith designed to be universal. " No one 
can study the geography of Palestine without perceiving 
that this narrow strip of territory was designed by Provi- 
dence for some important purpose in the history of man. 
At the head of the Mediterranean, the gateway of Asia for 
the nations of the west, and the natural outlet of the great 
caravan commerce of Western Asia with the sea, lying in 
the highway of all ancient trade and conquest, the very 
pivot about which the intercourse of nations and continents 
revolves, it is yet isolated by natural causes from all adja- 
cent countries which might swallow up its individuality. 
The great mountain barrier upon the north, the sea upon 
the west, the deep crevasse of the Ghor and the Dead Sea 
upon the east, and the desert also to the east, and on the 
south, these physical characteristics of the country, stamp 
it in perpetuity as a land apart from all lands— fitted at once 
to be the theatre of great events, and to keep their un- 
changing record upon its unchanging features. Those fea- 
tures are photographed upon every page of the Bible, and 
the original remains to certify the fidelity of the copy. In- 
deed, there seems even to be the same relation of the Land 
and the Book which exists between the two revealed econo- 
mies. In order to the complete revelation of God in the 
incarnation and atonement of Christ, it was necessary that 
a particular people, separated for this end, should be made 
familiar with theophanies, with prophetic inspiration, with 
miraculous endowments, sacrificial offerings, and a represent- 



SACRED GEOGRAPHY. 273 

ative, priestly intercession, and should thus form a sacred 
language as the groundwork of the revelation of God in 
Christ. — The comparative isolation of the Jews in their ter- 
ritory, and their complete isolation by that economy and 
polity which were given to them by Jehovah before their 
entrance into the promised land, prepared the typical 
moulds in which the great thoughts of Divine love and 
mercy should be fully conveyed to an unbelieving world. 
And since, as compared with that disclosure of God which 
is made to those who see him face to face, the Bible is but 
the Pictorial Primer of our faith, there was need also that 
its symbols and illustrations should be run into some physi- 
cal mould prepared to contain so much of spiritual truth as 
we, in this period of childhood, might be able to receive. 
What were the Bible to man without its Eden and Jerusa- 
lem ; its tree of life forfeited in the one, restored with 
perennial fruitfulness in the other ? What were the incar- 
nation, had not the human life of Christ been circumscribed 
within familiar and unchanging scenes ; — Nazareth and 
Bethany, Gennesaret, and its romantic shores, Jerusalem 
and its Temple ? What were the impression of the atone- 
ment itself, had it been enacted in some spirit world, with- 
out the visible agony of the garden, and the Cross lifted 
up on Calvary ? And so in the land of Palestine, as would 
hardly be possible in any other land, there existed in its 
physical features and its every-day life, materials for a pic- 
torial alphabet of spiritual truths ; — the rock, the tower, 
the fountain, the stream, the mountain, the forest, the 
desert, the cave, the gulf, the sea, the shepherd, the watch- 
man, the husbandman, the vinedresser, the robber, and the 
beast of prey, whatever could furnish a similitude for a re- 
ligious truth or duty, compressed into a little territory, and 
there made permanent by the finger and the providence of 
God. The land where the incarnate Word dwelt with 
men, is, and must even be, an integral part of the Divine 
12* 



274 TESTIMOITr OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

Revelation. Her testimony is essential to the chain of evi- 
dences, her aid invaluable to exposition. The very hills 
and mountains, rocks, rivers, and fountains are symbols 
and pledges of things far better than themselves. In a 
word, Palestine is one vast tablet whereupon God's mes- 
sages to men have been drawn and graven deep in living 
characters, by the great Publisher of glad tidings, to be 
seen and read of all to the end of time." 1 

The value of this testimony to the truth of the Bible 
will be perceived, when it is considered that romancers 
always place the scene of their fictions in a distant region 
or a departed time ; the sacred writers recount events hap- 
pening in their own country and during the period of their 
own lives. Impostors avoid details, and keep to general 
statements, taking care to introduce no names, places or 
distances, which might serve to betray the fraud and pub- 
lish the imposition. But the Bible, in almost every chapter, 
stands committed on all these points, and its narratives are 
accompanied with all the minute circumstances of time, 
place, situation, habit, etc., conveying an impression of 
reality beyond the reach of fiction. Thus in the Old Testa- 
ment we read that it was " between Bethel and Hai," 
whence the valley of the Jordan can be seen, that Abra- 
ham parted with Lot, and it was from the heights near 
Hebron that the patriarch beheld the smoke denoting the 
overthrow of the cities of the plain. In the New Testa- 
ment, it was as our Lord was " coming down " from Cana 
to Capernaum, that news arrives of the healing of the no- 
bleman's son ; it was on the road from Jericho to Jerusa- 
lem, and on the eve of a memorable Passover, that Bartimeus, 
the blind beggar, the son of Timeus, is restored to sight ; 
and it was at Bethany, a village two miles from the capital, 
that a few days afterwards Lazarus is recalled from the 
tomb. 

1 The substance of the above introductory paragraph is from Dr. Thom- 
son's " Land and the Book." 



SACRED GEOGRAPHY. 275 

These are a few of innumerable examples that might be 
cited, showing the fearlessness with which the sacred 
writers commit themselves to statements, always avoided 
in Apocryphal works, and which could be so readily disproved 
if untrue. Yet in no one known instance has geographical 
incorrectness or even indistinctness been detected. Each 
new traveller is adding fresh confirmation of its precision 
and accuracy. "It is impossible not to be struck," says 
Canon Stanley, " by the constant agreement between the 
recorded history and the natural geography both of the 
Old and New Testament. To find a marked correspond- 
ence between the scenes of the Sinaitic mountains and the 
events of the Israelite wanderings is not much, perhaps, but 
it is certainly something towards the truth of the whole 
narrative. To meet in the Gospels allusions, transient but 
yet precise, to the localities of Palestine, inevitably suggests 
the conclusion of their early origin, while Palestine was 
still familiar and accessible, while the events themselves 
were still recent in the minds of the writers. The detailed 
harmony between the life of Joshua and the various scenes 
of his battles, is a slight but a true indication that we are 
dealing not with shadows, but with realities of flesh and 
blood. Such coincidences are not usually found in fables, 
least of all in fables of Eastern origin." 

During the last half century this interesting department 
of testimony to the Bible has been sedulously cultivated, 
and the observations of intelligent Eastern travellers have 
furnished numerous and striking confirmations of its truths 
and narratives. "The truth is," says a learned writer, 1 
"the Providence of God, which is never more worthily em- 
ployed than about his Word, seems now to be directing the 
eyes of his servants, as with a pointed finger, to the immense 
stores of elucidation constantly accumulating from this 
quarter. Animated either by the noble spirit of missionary 
1 Professor Bush. 



276 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

enterprise, of commercial speculation, of military adventure, 
or laudable curiosity, men of intelligence and observation 
have made their way into every region on which the light 
of revelation originally shone; exploring its antiquities, 
mingling with its inhabitants, detailing its manners and 
customs, and displaying its physical, moral and political 
features. From these expeditions they have returned 
laden with the rich results of their industry; and the 
labors of the pen and pencil have made thousands par- 
takers of the benefit. " 

A selection of some of the more important of these 
"results" gleaned from various authentic and reliable 
sources, will occupy the remainder of the present chapter. 

MANNEKS AND CUSTOMS. 

The testimony of the Land to the Book may be read in 
the existing frame-work of manners and usages. It has 
been beautifully ordered, in Divine Providence, that 
while the nations of the West are notorious for per- 
petual fashion and change, those of the East are, to a great 
extent, immutable in their customs, and social habits, and 
arrangements. The Bedouin tents are still the faithful 
reproduction of the outward life of the patriarchs. Dur- 
ing the heat of the day, the Sheik of the tribe, with his 
flowing robes and reverend beard, will still be found, as 
Abraham in the plains of Mamre, sitting by the tent door, 
ready to receive the stranger, to bring him a little water 
that his feet may be washed, to break bread for him, and 
to bid him tarry for the night. The wandering Arab of 
the desert may often be seen laying himself down after sun- 
set on his bed of sand, like Jacob in the wilderness of Pa- 
dan-aram, with a stone only for his pillow. At the well are 
still also to be seen the troughs for the camels, the stone on 
the well's mouth, and the camels kneeling with their bur- 






SACRED GEOGRAPHY. 211 

dens and waiting patiently till their troughs are full. The 
close veil, the forehead ornaments, the earrings, the anklets, 
the burden carried on the head, the children carried on the 
shoulder, still mark the Eastern woman as in the days of 
Isaiah. Companies of Ishmaelites still come from Gilead, 
with their camels and dromedaries, bearing spicery and 
balm and myrrh, as in the days of Reuben and Judah. 
The description of Elijah and of the Baptist, finds a 
parallel in the startling appearances, familiar to all travel- 
lers in those lands, of the strange wild figures, who, as San- 
tons or Dervishes, still haunt the solitary places of the East, 
their only clothing being a cloak of camel's hair thrown 
over the shoulders and a girdle of skin tied round the 
waist. All this may still be seen among the pastoral tribes 
of the unchanging Orient : 

" Where the lone desert rears its craggy stone, 
Where suns unblest their angry lustre fling ; 
And way-worn pilgrims seek the scanty spring." 

Bishop Heber's Palestine. 

The vineyards, the corn fields, the houses, the wells of 
Syria, moreover, still retain the outward imagery of the 
teaching of Christ and his apostles ; while the dress of the 
people, the customs of society, the idioms of thought, the 
salutations of courtesy, are living records of even yet re- 
moter times. The unmuzzled ox still treads out the corn 
as in the most distant ages of the past ; shepherds watch 
their flocks by night, while the sheep know their voice and 
follow them : women are seen grinding at the mill, and still 
come with their pitchers and talk with them who sit by the 
well. The beds of the people are a simple mat or carpet, 
and even a child may take them up and walk ; their bottles 
are of leather ; the grass is cast into the oven ; the tombs 
are inhabited ; there are lodges in the garden of cucum- 
bers ; grass grows on the houses ; and the inhabitants walk, 
sleep, and meditate on the roofs of their dwellings. At 



278 TESTIMONY OP SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

night the gay marriage procession, with torches and music, 
may often be seen on their way to the wedding festival. 
The mourners also go about the streets and make lamenta- 
tions for the dead. " At every step," says Morier, " some 
object, some idiom, some dress, or some custom of common 
life, reminds the traveller of ancient times ; and confirms 
above all, the beauty, the accuracy, the propriety of the 
history of the Bible." 

THE FACE OF NATURE. **. 

The natural phenomena and features of the country also 
remain the same. The hills still stand round about Jerusa- 
lem, as in the days of David and Solomon. The dew falls 
on Hermon ; the cedars grow on Libanus ; and Kishon, 
" that ancient river," draws its streams from Tabor as in 
the times of old. The sea of Tiberias still lies imbedded 
bright and blue, amid the hills of Galilee ; the fig tree springs 
up by the wayside ; the sycamore spreads its branches ; and 
the vines and olives still climb the sides of the mountains. 
The wells of Elim with their overshadowing palm trees still 
refresh the weary traveller of the desert, and the waters of 
Marah are as bitter now as they were before the miracle of 
healing. Flocks of quails from some unknown region still 
alight in the desert, and from the top of Carmel, the cloud 
" no bigger than a man's hand," is still at times descried 
emerging from the horizon, as seen by the prophet, and al- 
ways heralds the coming rain. Abana and Pharpar still 
water and fertilize the plain of Damascus as in the days of 
Naaman, and the swellings of Jordan are not less regular 
than when the Hebrews first approached its banks. The 
brook still wanders through the valley of Elah, where the 
Philistines were once encamped, and which supplied the 
smooth pebbles for the sling of David. Bashan is still re- 
nowned for its oaks, and Sharon for its roses. The willow 



SACRED GEOGEAPHY. 279 

still weeps by the Euphrates as when the captives of Judah 
hung upon it their harps ; the pelican and the bittern are 
still found in desert places. Mount Tabor still overlooks 
the fertile plain of Esdraelon, where the tribe of Issachar 
rejoiced in their tents, and where Barak fought and dis- 
comfited Sisera and his hosts. Ebal and Gerizim still guard 
the vale of Shechem. Pisgah still overlooks the land of 
promise, and Sinai frowns in awful majesty amid its desert 
solitude. M Among all the stupendous works of nature," 
says Mr. Stephens, " not a place can be selected more fitted 
for the exhibition of Almighty power." 

"Extraordinary appearances," says Chateaubriand, in 
describing Palestine, " every where proclaim a land teem- 
ing with miracles ; the burning sun, the towering eagle, the 
barren fig tree ; all the poetry, all the pictures of Scripture 
are here. Every name commemorates a mystery, every 
grotto proclaims the future, every hill re-echoes the accents 
of a prophet. God himself has spoken in these regions ; 
dried up rivers, riven rocks, half open sepulchres attest the 
prodigy. The desert still appears mute with terror, and 
you would imagine that it had never presumed to interrupt 
the silence, since it heard the awful voice of the Eternal." 

The present rocky and barren appearance of the greater 
part of Palestine, at first sight strikes the observer as con- 
tradictory to the inspired description of it as " a land flow- 
ing with milk and honey, — the glory of all lands." Upon 
examination, however, this apparent difficulty vanishes, or 
rather yields additional testimony to the truth of the Bible. 

" It would be wrong," remarks a modern traveller, " to 
argue the former capabilities of the Holy Land from its 
present appearance, as it is now under the curse of God, 
and its general barrenness is in full accordance with pro- 
phetic denunciation. The Israelite in our street, whose ap- 
pearance was delineated with graphic precision by Moses in 
the fifteenth century before Christ, is not a surer evidence 



280 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

of the inspiration of the holy volume, than the land as it 
now exists, cursed as it is in all its products, its heaven shut 
up, and comparatively without rain. The prophecies con- 
cerning Canaan are numerous, and have been so literally 
fulfilled that they may now be used as actual history." — 
Haedy's Notices of the Holy Land^ p. 283. 

Great, however, as is the change which has been 
wrought in the appearance of Palestine, there are not want- 
ing indications of what it was before divine judgments made 
it desolate, and of what it may again become when those 
judgments shall be removed. " Even in those parts where 
all is now desolate," remarks Dr. Robinson, "there are 
everywhere traces of the hand of men of other days. . . . 
Most of the hills, indeed, exhibit the remains of terraces 
built up around them, the undoubted signs of former culti- 
vation." Again, when travelling towards Hebron, he ob- 
serves: "Many of the former terraces along the hill sides 
are still in use ; and the land looks somewhat, as it may 
have done in ancient times." " There are elements in the 
land of Palestine," writes Lieut. Van de Velde, " for the 
production of the richest abundance of useful plants. The 
ground is untilled by mortal hands, and yet what a profu- 
sion of charms does nature offer ! " (He is speaking of the 
plain of Sharon.) " The same elements are to be found ex- 
isting in the soil elsewhere ; but there the land is inhabited 
— inhabited by a race of men whose track is followed by 
barbarism and desolation. It is thus, in a certain sense, a 
blessing for the country to be uninhabited. It will have 
been remarked, perhaps, that the want of water, more than 
any other cause, makes the land lie dry and dead. No doubt, 
scarcity of water is the immediate cause ; but in the days 
of Israel's prosperity water was to be had every where by 
means of wells and water courses, and the greater cultiva- 
tion of trees at once increased the rain and diminished the 
evaporation from the ground. Such, however, is the nat- 



SACKED GEOGRAPHY. 281 

ural disposition of the present inhabitants of Palestine, that 
with all this-want of water, they allow the wells and foun- 
tains that existed from of old to be ruined and stopt up, and 
leave the water courses of former days broken down and 
neglected. And all this that God's word may be fulfilled, 
and God's curse upon the land accomplished : " Then shall 
the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate ... 
because it did not rest in your sabbaths, when ye dwelt 
upon it." — Syria and Palestine, vol. i. p. 344. 

" In ages past all glorious was the land, 

And lovely -were thy borders, Palestine ! 
The heavens were wont to shed their influence bland 

On all those mountains and those vales of thine ; 

For o'er thy coasts resplendent then did shine 
The light of God's approving countenance, 

"With rapturous glow of blessedness divine, 
And 'neath the radiance of that mighty glance, 
Basked the wide-scattered isles o'er ocean's blue expanse. 

M But there survives a tinge of glory yet, 

O'er all thy pastures and thy heights of green, 
Which, though the lustre of thy day hath set, 
Tells of the joy and splendor which hath been: 
So some proud ruin, 'mid the desert seen, 
By traveller, halting on his path awhile, 

Declares how once beneath the light serene 
Of brief posterity's unclouded smile, 
Uprose in grandeur there some vast imperial pile." 

Lays of Palestine. 
Desolate as for the most part it now appears, the sacred 
soil awaits but the appointed hour (so we may gather from 
every narrative) to sustain its millions as of old ; to flow 
again with milk and honey ; to become once more " a land 
of brooks of waters, of fountains and depths that spring 
out of valleys and hills ; a land of wheat and barley, and 
vines, and fig-trees, and pomegranates, and of oil olive ; " 
and to resume its ancient and rightful titles, " the garden 
of the Lord," and " the glory of all lands." 



282 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

When from the general features of the country, we 
descend to the minutest topographical details, we find the 
same marvellous accuracy. In order that the strength 
of this argument may be more fully, estimated, I propose 
to select the more prominent and interesting localities of 
sacred history, and show from the testimony of the most 
learned and accomplished travellers, that so exact is the 
agreement, that the Bible may be said to be written on 
the scenes which it describes. 



THE LAND OF GOSHEN. 

" In the best of the land ... in the land of Goshen let (the Israelites) 
dwell . . . And Joseph placed his father and his brethren ... in the 
land of Rameses, as Pharoah had commanded." — Gen. xlvii. 6, 11. 

" The land of Goshen lay on the east of the Delta, and 
was the part of Egypt nearest Palestine ; this tract is now 
comprehended in the modern province Esh-Shurkiyeh. That 
the land of Goshen lay upon the waters of the Nile, is ap- 
parent from the circumstance that the Israelites practised 
irrigation ; that it was a land of seed, figs, vines, and pome- 
granates ; that the people ate of fish freely ; while the 
enumeration of the articles for which they longed in the 
desert, corresponds remarkably with the list given by Mr. 
Lane as the food of the modern fellahs. ' We remember 
the fish we did eat in Egypt freely, the cucumbers, and 
the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic.' 
All this goes to show that the Iraelites, when in Egypt, 
lived much as the Egyptians do now, and that the land of 
Goshen probably extended further west, and more into 
the Delta than has usually been supposed. They would 
seem to have lived interspersed among the Egyptians of 
that district, perhaps in separate villages. . . . This appears 
from the circumstance of their borrowing 'jewels of gold 
and silver ' from their Egyptian neighbors ; and also from 



SACKED GEOGRAPHY. 283 

the fact, that their houses were to be marked with blood, 
in order that they might be distinguished and spared in 
the last dread plague of the Egyptians. The immediate 
descendants of Jacob were doubtless shepherds, like their 
forefathers, dwelling in tents; and probably drove their 
flocks for pasture far up in the valley of the desert, like 
the present inhabitants of the same region. Even now 
there is a colony of Arabs, about fifty families, living (in 
those parts), who cultivate the soil, and yet dwell in tents. 
They came thither from Mount Sinai, and acquired such 
a taste for the good things of Egypt, that, like the Israel- 
ites, they could not live in the desert. The land of Goshen 
was ' the best of the land ; ' and such too the province Esh- 
Shurkiyeh has ever been, down to the present time (being 
now famous for its fertility). There are here more flocks 
and herds than anywhere else in Egypt ; and also more 
fishermen." — Robinson's Researches, vol. i, pp. 76-79. 

ON — HELIOPOLIS. 

" (Pharoah gave Joseph to wife) Asenath, the daughter of Poti-pherah, 
priest of On." — Gen. xli. 45. 

" The ride from Cairo to Heliopolis, the On of Scrip- 
ture, is delightful ; the first part is across the skirt of the 
desert. . . . Farther on, the road lies through green fields 
and shady avenues of acacia trees, and the whole air is 
redolent of the delicious perfumes of bean blossoms, and 
alive with the hum of wild bees. The ' land of Goshen ' is 
opening upon you, and its actual aspect bears out the 
ancient renown for pastoral fertility, which caused it to be 
conceded by Pharoah as an abode to Jacob and his sons, 
when Joseph persuaded them to leave their own country, 
and to bring their flocks and herds with them, that they 
might dwell near him in the land of Egypt. I cannot de- 
scribe the deep and reverential interest with which one 



284 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

treads the ground rendered sacred by its associations with 
Bible history ; and while the imagination of the traveller 
is carried back to the days of the patriarchs, and fancy 
peoples the land with the venerable forms of Joseph's kin- 
dred ; no pert innovation of modern times, in the shape of 
recent civilization, is visible, to dispel the momentary illu- 
sion. The swarthy Arab, with turbaned head and naked 
limbs, laboriously irrigates his fields by means of the primi- 
tive shadoof '/ the patient ox, unmuzzled, treads out the 
corn ; and long strings of camels and asses bear home loads 
of green provender, exactly in the same manner as in the 
days of the pastor patriarchs! 

" "No vestige of the ancient On remains, except an obe- 
lisk sixty-five feet high, of a far less beautiful description 
than those of Luxor and Karnae, the sole remaining one 
(with the exception of Cleopatra's Needle), now to be seen 
in Lower Egypt. The cartouches upon its four sides show 
it to have been erected by Osirtasen, the Pharaoh of Joseph ; 
and as some indications formerly existed of an avenue of 
sphinxes leading from it, and part of a sphinx was lately 
found there, most probably this solitary obelisk formed one 
of the pair which stood before the entrance of the celebrated 
Temple of the Sun, at Heliopolis. . . . I in vain looked 
around me for some other trace of the famous city where 
Joseph dwelt, and where Moses became c learned in the 
wisdom of the Egyptians.' All is now on a level blank, 
and the words of prophecy have been illustrated to the let- 
ter in On, as in Noph and No, — the pomp of Egypt is 
destroyed, and she is destitute of that of which she was 
full." — Mrs. Romer's Temples and Tombs of Egypt* 



SACEED GEOGRAPHY. 285 



. ZOAN OE TANIS. 

" Marvellous things did he in the sight of their fathers in the land of 
Egypt, in the field of Zoan." — Psalm lxxviii. 12. 

" We landed at the village of San, anciently called Tanis, 
and in Scripture Zoan, one of the most ancient cities in the 
world. The fine alluvial plain around was no doubt ' the 
field of Zoan,' where God did marvellous things in the days 
of Moses. "We pitched our tents upon the bank, to shelter 
ourselves from the rays of an almost vertical sun, while the 
wild Arabs came round, some to gaze upon the strangers, 
and some to offer old coins and small images for sale. In 
the cool of the day we wandered forth, and Mr. Bonar, 
passing over some heaps of rubbish a few minutes' walk 
from the village, started a fox from its lair. Following 
after it, he found himself among low hills of alluvial matter, 
full of fragments of pottery, while beyond these lay several 
heaps of large stones, which on a nearer inspection he found 
to be broken obelisks, and ruins of what may have been 
ancient temples, the relics of a glory that is departed ; but 
darkness came on, and obliged him to return to the tent. 
It was a very lovely moonlight night, and very pleasant it 
was to unite in prayer and in singing psalms amid the wild 
Arabs, in the very region where God had wrought so many 
wonders, long ago. We read over Isaiah xix., ' The burden 
of Egypt,' in our tent, and when we looked out on the paltry 
mud village of San, with its wretched inhabitants, we saw 
God's word fulfilled before our eyes. * Surely the princes 
of Zoan are fools. . . . Where are they ? Where are 

thy wise men?' Isa. xix. 11, 13 At sunrise 

next morning we took a full survey of all that now remains 
of ancient Zoan. We found that the large mounds of allu- 
vial matter which cover the ruins of brick and pottery, ex- 
tend about two miles from east to west, and one mile and a 



286 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

half from north to south. The whole country round ap- 
peared to be covered, not with sand, but with soil that 
might be cultivated to the utmost if there was water. The 
most remarkable relics of this ancient city lie at the western 
extremity. We came upon immense blocks of red granite 
lying in a heap. All had been hewn, some were carved, 
and some were still lying regularly placed one above another. 
Here probably stood the greatest temple of Zoan, and there 
seems to have been an open square round it. Possibly, also, 
a stream flowed through the very midst of the city, for at 
present there is the dry channel of a torrent. Farther to 
the north we found ten or twelve obelisks, fallen and pros- 
trate, and two sphinxes, broken and half sunk in the ground. 
Among the mounds we could clearly trace buildings of 
brick, the bricks still retaining their original place. The 
remains of pottery, however, were most remarkable, con- 
sisting of jars of the ancient form without number, all bro- 
ken into fragments, many of them bearing the clearest 
marks of the action of fire, showing that God has literally 
fulfilled the word of the prophet, ' I will set fire in Zoan.' " 
Ezek. xxx. 14. — Mission to the Jews. 



THE PASSAGE OE THE RED SEA. 

" And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the Lord caused 
the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea 
dry land, and the waters were divided. And the children of Israel went 
into the midst of the. sea upon the dry ground : and the waters were a wall 
unto them on their right hand and on their left." — Exodus xiv. 21, 22. 

No part of Holy Scripture, probably, has been more a 
source of cavil to the sceptic than the account of the passage 
of the Red Sea by the Israelites, and not a few Christian 
writers even, have endeavored to explain away its miracu- 
lous character. To those, however, who are willing to re- 
ceive the literal statements of the inspired narrative, it is 



SACKED GEOGKAPHY. 287 

gratifying to know that the geographical features of that 
wonderful event can still be identified. 

" It has always been our opinion," says Dr. Kitto, 
" confirmed more and more by the results of progressive 
inquiry, that the passage was effected a few miles' below 
the town of Suez, across the sea itself, where it is about ten 
miles in width. How could the Israelites have been c en- 
tangled in the land,' so as to become an easy prey to their 
pursuers, if they had only a narrow and fordable frith be- 
fore them ? Whence the consternation and distress of the 
Israelites ? How could the waters be ' a wall ' unto them 
on the right hand and on the left, so as to justify the ex- 
pression, ' the waters stood upright as an heap, and the 
depths were congealed in the heart of the sea.' Why the 
triumphant song of Moses at the miraculous overthrow of 
the Egyptians, if this was occasioned mainly by the regular 
return of tidal waters? 'The dukes of Edom shall be 
amazed; the mighty men of Moab, trembling shall take 
hold of them ; all the inhabitants of Canaan shall melt away 
with fear.' And why ? Because the Israelites went at low 
water, over a narrow pass, in safety, as is customary to this 
day, and the Egyptians in pursuit were drowned by the re- 
turning tide ! 

" To obviate these objections, the children of Israel are . 
supposed to have turned their course from Etham, and 
passed either in a circuitous route around the Attakah, 
which rises ' lofty and dark,' in a bold bluff, from the west- 
ern shore below Suez, or else directly down the coast, pass- 
ing between this head land and the sea. This mountain is 
supposed to have been the Baal-Zephon of the Exodus, and 
the valley on the south of it Pi-hahiroth. A German writer, 
Yon Raumer, in an able and laborious work on Scripture 
Geography, supposes them to have made their final exit 
from the south-western border of Goshen, near Cairo, and 
to have pursued their course to the sea through a valley, 



288 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

still called the Valley of Wandering, south of a chain of 
mountains which runs from Cairo eastward, an.d terminates 
in the Attakah. According to this theory, Rameses was 
near the present Cairo ; Succoth and Etham were in the 
valley; and Migdol, the Deraj, a lofty mountain south of 
Attakah. 

" Here they would be beset with dangers on every side. 
On the right a wide waste of mountains and desert ; on the 
left the impassable Attakah ; before them the sea ; and be- 
hind them the Egyptians in eager pursuit, with a regular 
military force, and six hundred chariots of war. On the 
supposition that the waters were divided by the direct and 
immediate power of Jehovah, the Israelites could have 
eight or ten hours to make their way through the channel 
opened to them by the hand of Omnipotence, a space am- 
ply sufficient for a march of about ten miles. An escape so 
miraculous, through the depths of the sea, and the fearful 
overthrow of Pharaoh and his hosts, might indeed strike 
4 the dukes of Edom ' and the surrounding nations, far and 
near, with the fear of Jehovah, and a dread of his people." 

THE WELLS OF MOSES. 

The first spot where the Israelites probably encamped 
after their passage, was that which is still called the " Wells 
of Moses." 

" We rode in the clear moonlight to the Wells of Moses, 
where our tents were ready for our reception. (Here) we 
read the song of Moses and of the children of Israel, with 
feelings and emotions such as we had never before expe- 
rienced. 

" (Next morning), before assembling for breakfast, we 
particularly examined the wells, in the midst of which we 
were encamped. They rise in mounts elevated a little above 
the level of the neighborhood, and less than a couple of 



SACKED GEOGRAPHY. 289 

miles inland. . . . Only one of them appeared to be regu- 
larly dug and built. . . . The others, six in number at pres- 
ent, are nothing more than fountains rising in small basins 
formed in the sands. . . . The supply of water is considera- 
ole." — Wilson's Lands of the Bible. 

" I am much inclined to think that Ayun Mousa is really 
the spot on which the foot of rescued Israel rested, and 
from which they beheld their enemies dead on the sea 
shore. ... I am persuaded . . . that the people of Israel 
entered their pathway just to the north of Ras Attakah, 
and that they passed straight onward to Ayun Mousa." — 
Fisk's Pastor's Memorial. 



MARAH. 

" And when they came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters of 
Marah, for they were bitter : therefore the name of it was called Marah " 
(or bitterness). — Exodus xv. 23. 

From the Red Sea, Moses led the people into the wil- 
derness of Shur. Many parts of the great Arabian desert 
were called by the name of distinct wildernesses; such as 
the Wilderness of Shur, into which they now went out. 
They continued their march for three days in a south-east- 
erly direction, along the coast, through sterile and hilly 
parts. They appear to have suffered much from want of 
water during those three days ; and when at length it was 
discovered, it proved bitter or brackish. 

" We came to the 'Ain Howarah, the ' well of destruc- 
tion,' a fountain on a small knoll close to the track which 
we were pursuing. It occupies a small basin, about five 
feet in diameter, and eighteen inches deep, and to some ex- 
tent it oozes through the sands, leaving, like the wells of 
Moses, a cfeposit of lime. The Arabs, on observing me 
about to drink of the water, exclaimed, 'It is bitter, bitter, 
bitter ! ' 

13 



290 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

" This fountain has been almost universally admitted by 
travellers since the days of Burkhardt, to be the true Marah. 
of Scripture, as it is found in a situation about thirty miles 
from the place where the Israelites must have landed on the 
'eastern shore of the Red Sea, a space sufficient for their 
march, when they were three days in the wilderness and 
found no water. No other constant spring is found in the 
intermediate space. It retains its ancient character, and 
has a bad name among the Arabs, who seldom allow their 
camels to partake of it." — Wilson's Lands of the Bible. 



ELIM. 

" And they came to Elim, where were twelve wells of water, and three 
score and ten palm' trees ; and they encamped there by the waters." — Ex- 
odus xv. 27. 

About eight or nine miles south by east from the 'Ain 
Howarah is the "Wady Ghurandel, generally believed to be 
identical with the Elim of Scripture, where the Israelites 
encamped. It is described by recent travellers as " a grace- 
fully undulated, sandy territory, scattered over with thick 
clumps of the tamarisk tree and small palms, which give it 
the appearance of an ornamental plantation." Dr. Shaw 
discovered here nine wells, and supposed the other three to 
have been filled up by drifts of sand so common in Arabia. 
Burckhardt says, " The non-existence of twelve wells at 
Ghurandel must not be considered as evidence against the 
foregoing conjecture, for Niebuhr says that his companions 
obtained water here by digging to a very great depth, and 
there was a great plenty of it when I passed ; water, in 
fact, is readily found by digging in every valley in Arabia, 
and wells are thus easily formed, which are as quickly filled 
up again by the sands." 



SACKED GEOGRAPHY. 291 



MOUNT SINAI. 



"... And Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord 
descended upon it in fire ; and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke 
of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly." — Exodus xix. 18. 

" On a sudden a broad quadrangular plain, but ofmuch 
greater length than breadth, lay before us. It is bounded 
at its farthest extremity by a mountain of surpassing height, 
grandeur, and terror ; and this was the very c Mount ot 
God,' where He stood when He descended in fire, and 
where rested the cloud of His glory, from which He spake 
4 all the words of the law.' The plain itself was the Wadi, 
or Rdhah, the Valley of Rest, where stood the whole con- 
gregation of the sons and daughters of Israel, when gather- 
ed together before the Lord. As of old, the everlasting 
mountains, by which it was bounded on every side, were 
the walls, and the expanse of Heaven itself, the canopy, of 
this great temple. Entered within its courts, so sacred in 
its associations, we felt for a time the curiosity of the trav- 
eller lost in the reverance and awe of the worshipper. We 
walked through the valley of Rahah, occasionally stopping 
to survey the interesting scene around us. 

" The mountain is of deep red granite. It rises from the 
plain almost perpendicularly about 1,500 feet. From the 
monks it receives the name of Horeb, which in Hebrew 
means ' dry, desert, and desolation.' The Mount of Moses 
(Jebel Musa) was not visible. It is not, however, it is to be 
observed, a distinct mountain, but only the highest peak of 
this one, at the parts most remote from the valley. Round- 
ing the eastern corner of Horeb ... we had a narrow de- 
file before us called 'The valley of Jethro.' " — Wilson's 
Lands of the Bible. 

" I made the ascent of Mount Sinai. ... As to the pre- 
cise pinnacle of the Sinaite group from which the law was 



292 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

given to Moses, I must frankly confess that it would only 
be a choice of conjectures, or a balance of probabilities. 
That it was indeed the Sinaite group which invited my 
footsteps, there could be no doubt. Not a particle was 
there of this wilderness of granite that had not quaked at 
the mysterious and awful presence of Jehovah : not one 
of its numberless clefts and caverns, in which was not heard 
and echoed the voice of the trumpet which, sounded long 
and waxed louder and louder. And was there not enough 
... in this certainty ? . . . Scripture withholds all but 
the general certainty to which I have referred. ... I 
retired — still gazing on the venerable and solemn scene, 
and read, with a humbled heart, the law as written by the 
finger of God upon the two tables of stone." — Fisk's Pas- 
tor's Memorial. 

" How sternly desolate ! the Deity, 

Methinks, has fix'd upon that awful height 
His grandest signature of majesty, 

And chronicled his Godhead's changeless might. 
And as the tempest, in its lurid path, 

Sweeps over thee unheeded, we behold 
Fit emblem of that throne, which earthly wrath 

And change affect not, resting, as of old, 
Upon the strong foundations ; truth sublime, 
And wisdom infinite, and power unchang'd by time. 

" Still thou art holy. God's appointed throne, 

Where mortal man held audience with Him. 
Here, lightning-girt, his high pavilion shone, 

Here his own thunder roll'd its awful hymn. 
Here, while unutterable awe did thrill 

The- souls of Israel's breathless multitude, 
As if the heart of that great host grew still 

In one concentred pulse ; the prophet stood 
Commission'd to receive the laws of heaven, 
For man's instruction, strength, and guidance given." 

Rev. J. W. Brown. 



SACKED GEOGRAPHY. 293 



THE WILDERNESS 

" And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led 
thee these forty years in the wilderness." — Deut. viii. 2. 

"The general name by which the Hebrews called 'the 
wilderness,' including always that of Sinai, was ' the pas- 
ture.' Bare as the surface of the Desert is, yet the thin 
clothing of vegetation, which is seldom entirely withdrawn, 
especially the aromatic shrubs on the high hill sides, fur- 
nish sufficient sustenance for the herds of the six thousand 
Bedouins who constitute the present population of the 
Peninsula. 

' Along the mountain ledges green, 
The scatter'd sheep at will may glean 

The Desert's spicy stores.' — Keble. 

" So were they seen following the daughters or the shep- 
herd-slaves of Jethro. So may they be seen climbing the 
rocks, or gathered round the pools and springs of the val- 
leys, under the charge of the black-veiled Bedouin women 
of the present day. And in the Tiyaha, Towara, or Alouin 
tribes, with their chiefs and followers, their dress and man- 
ners, and habitations, we probably see the likeness of the 
Midianites, the Amalekites, and the Israelites themselves 
in this their earliest stage of existence. The long straight 
lines of black tents which cluster round the Desert springs, 
present to us on a small scale the image of the vast encamp- 
ment gathered round the one Sacred Tent, which with its 
covering of dyed skins, stood conspicuous in the midst, and 
which recalled the period of their nomadic life long after 
their settlement in Palestine. The deserted villages — 
marked by rude enclosures of stone, are doubtless such 
as those to which the Hebrew wanderers gave the name 
of 'Hazeroth,' and which afterwards furnished the type 
of the primitive sanctuary at Shiloh. The rude burial- 



294 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

grounds, with, the many nameless head stones, far away 
from human habitation, are such as the host of Israel must 
have left behind them at the different stages of their prog- 
ress—at Massah, at Sinai, at Kibroth-hattaavah, 'the 
graves of desire.' The salutations of the chiefs, in their 
bright scarlet robes, the one ' going out to meet the other,' 
the ' obeisance,' the c kiss ' on each side the head, the 
silent entrance into the tent for consultation, are all graphi- 
cally described in the encounter between Moses and Jethro. 
The constitution of the tribes, with the subordinate degrees 
of sheikhs, recommended by Jethro to Moses, is the very 
same which still exists amongst those who are possibly his 
lineal descendants — the gentle race of the Towara." — Stan- 
ley's Sinai and Palestine. 



THE APPROACH TO PALESTINE. 

"Everything told us that we were approaching the 
sacred frontier. That wide plain with its ruins and walls 
was the wilderness of Beersheba; with wells such as those 
for which Abraham and Isaac struggled ; at which, it may 
be, they had watered their flocks ; the neutral ground be- 
tween the Desert and the cultivated region which those 
shepherd patriarchs would most naturally choose for their 
wanderings, before the idea of a more permanent home 
had yet dawned upon them. That long line of hills was 
the beginning of 'the hill country of Judea,' and when 
we began to ascend it, the first answer to our inquiries 
after the route told that it was ' Carmel,' not the more 
famous mountain of that name, but that on which Nabal 
fed his flocks : and, close below its long ranges, was the 
hill and ruin of ' Ziph ; ' close above, the hill of c Maon.' 
That is to say, we were now in the heart of the wild coun- 
try where David wandered from Saul like those very ' par- 
tridges in the mountains,' which we saw abounding in all 



SACEED GEOGEAPHY. 295 

directions. . . . And to the east, towering high into the 
hazy sky, what looked like the Alps of Moab ; and between 
us and them a jagged line of lower hills, the rocks of En- 
gedi ; and, in the misty depths which parted these nearer 
and those further mountains, there needed no guide to tell 
that there lay, invisible as yet, the Dead Sea." — Sinai and 
Palestine. 

BEEESHEBA. 

11 So Abraham returned unto his young men ; and they rose up, and* 
went together to Beersheba ; and Abraham dwelt at Beersheba." — Gen. 
xxii. 19. 

This ancient settlement was on the southern limits of 
Judah and Palestine. Hence the phrase, " from Dan (in the 
extreme north) to Beersheba " (in the extreme south), to de- 
scribe the whole extent of the land. It was a favorite sta- 
tion of Abraham, and occurs so often in the history of the 
patriarchs, that much interest had long been felt in it, al- 
though its site had been forgotten, and no traces of its 
existence were known until it was discovered by Dr. Rob- 
inson. 

Upon coming up from the desert so graphically de- 
scribed by Mr. Stanley, he soon reached a wide water- 
course, or bed of a torrent. Upon its northern side, close 
upon the bank, he found two deep wells, still called Bir-es- 
sheba. The water was sweet and abundant, and flocks 
were gathering round them to drink. On some low hills a 
little to the north, he found ruins indicative of a consider- 
able village in the remote days of its prosperity. 

" Here then," says Dr. Robinson, " is the place where 
the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob dwelt ! Here 
Abraham dug perhaps this very well ; and journeyed from 
hence with Isaac to Mount Moriah to offer him up there in 
sacrifice. From this place Jacob fled to Padan-Aram after 
acquiring the birthright and blessing belonging to his 



296 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

brother ; and here too he sacrificed to the Lord, on setting 
off to see his son Joseph in Egypt. Here Samuel made 
his sons judges; and from here Elijah wandered out into 
the southern desert, and sat down under a shrub of Retem, 
just as our Arabs sat down under it every day and every 
night. Over these smiling hills the flocks of the patriarchs 
once roved by thousands, where now we found only a few 
camels, asses, and goats," — Biblical Researches. 

HEBEON. 

" Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of 
Machpelah before Mamre : the same is Hebron in the land of Canaan." — 
Gen. xxiii. 19. 

This venerable city stands second to Jerusalem alone, in 
high and sacred associations. " It was the earliest seat of 
civilized life," says Mr. Stanley, " not only of Judah but of 
Palestine. It was the ancient city of Ephron the Hittite, 
in whose ' gate ' he and the elders received the offer of 
Abraham, when as yet no other fixed habitation of man 
was known in Central Palestine. It was the first home of 
Abraham and the patriarchs ; their one permanent resting 
place when they were gradually exchanging the pastoral 
for the agricultural life. It was the city of Arba — the old 
Canaanite chief, with his three giant sons, under whose 
walls the trembling spies stole through the land by the 
adjacent valley of Eshcol. Here Caleb chose his portion, 
and gave it the new name of Hebron, when at the head of 
his valiant tribe he drove out the old inhabitants, and 
called the whole surrounding territory after his own name ; 
and there, under David, and at a later period under Absa- 
lom, the tribe of Judah always rallied when it asserted its 
independent existence against the rest of the Israelite 
nation. It needs but few words to give the secret of this 
early selection, of this long continuance of the metropolitan 
city of Judah. Every traveller from the desert will have 



SACKED GEOGRAPHY. 297 

been struck by the sight of that green vale, with its or- 
chards and vineyards, and numberless wells„ and in earlier 
times we must add the grove of terebinths or oaks, which 
then attracted from far the eye of the wandering tribes. 
This fertility was in part owing to its elevation into the 
cooler and the more watered region, above the dry and 
withered valleys of the rest of Judaea. Commanding this 
fertile valley, rose Hebron on its crested hill. Beneath 
was the burial place of the founders of their race. Caleb 
must have marked out the spot for his own, when with the 
spies he had passed through this very valley. When 
David returned from the chase of the Amalekite plunderers 
on the desert frontier, and doubted * to which of the cities 
of Judah he should go up ' from the wilderness, the natu- 
ral features of the place, as well as the oracle of God, 
answered clearly and distinctly, J unto Hebron.' " — Sinai 
and Palestine. 

The present town of Hebron is described by travellers 
as lying low down on the sloping sides of a narrow valley 
(Mamre), chiefly on the eastern side, but in the southern 
part stretches across also to the western side. The houses 
are all of stone, high and well built, with windows and flat 
roofs, and on these roofs are small domes, sometimes two 
or three to each house. " No city in Palestine," says Dr. 
Thomson, " so carries one back to the earliest patriarchal 
times. Manners, customs, modes of action, and even 
idioms of speech have changed but little from what they 
were when Abraham dwelt here." An aged oak or tere- 
binth in the adjacent plain of Mamre, where the patriarch's 
tent was often pitched, is still called Abraham's tree. The 
valley through which leads the road to Jerusalem is gener- 
ally considered to be the Eshcol of the Old Testament, and 
the character of its fruits still corresponds to its ancient 
celebrity. The largest and best grapes of Palestine are 
still produced there. In Hebron itself two ancient pools 
13* 



298 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

are still to be seen, one of which is supposed to be referred 
to (2 Sam. iv. J.2) as the place where David hung up the 
murderers of his rival Ishbosheth. 

That, however, which imparts to Hebron its highest in- 
terest is a massive structure entitled the Haram or Sacred 
Place, and which is honored by Moslems, Jews, and Chris- 
tians alike as the Tomb of the Patriarchs. It is described 
by Dr. Robinson as " a large and lofty building .... The 
walls are built of very large stones, all bevelled and hewn 
smooth, and similar in all respects to the most ancient 
parts of the walls around the Haram at Jerusalem .... 
There are no windows in any part of these walls. The 
places of entrance are at the two northern corners, where 
a long and broad flight of steps, of very gentle ascent, 
built up and covered along each side of the building exter- 
nally, leads to a door in each wall opening into the court 
within." . ..." I know of nothing," says that eminent 
traveller, "that should lead us to question the correctness 
of the tradition which regards this as the place of sepul- 
ture of Abraham and the other patriarchs as recorded in 
the book of Genesis. On the contrary, there is much to 
strengthen it. Josephus relates that Abraham and his 
descendants erected monuments over the sepulchres in 
question, which implies, at least, that in his day the place 
was marked by some ancient memorial. In another pas- 
sage he says expressly that the sepulchres of the patriarchs 
were still to be seen in Hebron, built of marble and of 
elegant workmanship. In the days of Eusebius and Je- 
rome, the monument of Abraham was yet pointed out; 
and the Bordeaux Pilgrim, in A. D. 333, describes it as a 
quadrangle, built of stones of admirable beauty .... It 
appears to me, we may rest with confidence in the view 
that this remarkable external structure of the Haram is 
indeed the work of Jewish hands, erected, long before the 
destruction of the nation, around the sepulchre of their 



SACRED GEOGRAPHY. 299 

revered progenitors, ' the friend of God,' and his descend- 
ants. The cave of Machpelah is described in Scripture as 
at the ' end of the field,' over against Mamre, the same is 
Hebron ; and all the later writers above quoted speak of 
the sepulchre of the patriarchs, as at or in Hebron, not 
near it. Here, then, the ' Father of the faithful,' as also 
Isaac and Jacob, rested from their wanderings." — Biblical 
Researches. 

The following observations of another traveller upon 
this vicinity bring out other Biblical associations : " From 
Hebron we climbed a steep terraced hill. At the top was 
a grove of fine old fig-trees, reminding one of the groves 
which crowned the i high places ' in ancient days. The 
view from this was rich and beautiful, and might be taken 
as some faint likeness of what it must have been in David's 
time, when the industrious Jews had entered on the olive 
gardens and vineyards of that earlier race, which, with all 
its crimes and savage idolatries, must have possessed ele- 
ments of material civilization lost to the lawless Arab peas- 
ants who people the land now. The royal city lay be- 
low us, not far off, in the luxuriant plain, from a centre in 
the valley radiating up three separate hills. Its white 
roofs, domes, and airy minarets, and especially the great 
mosque over Machpelah, blended beautifully with the olives, 
vines, and figs which surrounded them. Around was the 
lovely, rich Plain of Mamre, and beyond, cornfields were 
still golden on the lower uplands. 

" Again, a night under the shelter of Abraham's oak, 
and in the morning once more across the hill country of 
Judea on the way back by Bethlehem and Jerusalem. 

" The especial interest of this day's journey was that it 
lay through the heart of the scenery of David's Psalms. 
The rocks and hill-fortresses, the ' thousand hills,' and the 
quiet valleys, the green pastures by the still waters, the 
wild caves and ravines of the shadow of death, amidst 



300 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

which we journeyed this day, were precisely those which 
have from our earliest childhood been made allegorical to 
us by the inspired poetry of the shepherd king." — Wander- 
ings in Bible Lands. 



THE LAND OF THE PHILISTINES. 

" And Abraham sojourned in the Philistines' land many days."— Genesis 
xxi. 34. " Woe unto the inhabitants of the sea-coast, the nation of the 
Cherethites ! the word of the Lord is against you ; Canaan, the land of 
the Philistines, I will even destroy thee, that there shall be no inhabitant. 
And the sea-coast shall be dwellings and cottages for shepherds and folds 
for flocks." — Zephaniah ii. 5. 

The land of the Philistines was a narrow strip of terri- 
tory lying on the coast of the Mediterranean sea, west and 
southwest of Judsea. The Philistines appear to have been 
a colony of foreign settlers, who, at some remote period, 
had crossed the sea from Asia Minor or Crete. The name 
" Cherethites" is given them by the prophets, and imported 
their strange worship of Dagon, the Fish-god, a divinity 
unknown to the other tribes of Canaan. As early as the 
time of Abraham they had become a powerful people. 
When the Israelites were on their way to the Promised 
Land, it is recorded that " God led them not through the 
way of the Philistines, although that was near ; for God 
said, Lest peradventure the people repent when they see 
war, and they return to Egypt." The Philistines, however, 
were not of the Canaanite races, doomed to extirpation. 
They were left, we are told, to teach Israel war, and for a 
trial of the faithfulness and obedience of the chosen people, 
whom, for their sins and idolatry, they were often permitted 
to chastise. 

The localities of the interesting events associated with 
this mutual warfare, may now be traced. The rough moun- 
tain-road by which Samson "went down" from the hiU 



SACKED 8E0GEAPHY. 301 

forts of his native Dan into the " low country " beneath, 
— the tangled thickets close to the vineyards where the 
young lion in the path roared against him, — the waving 
wheat-fields on the level interspersed with olives and vines, 
which he set on fire, are all there, and the wild animals he 
made use of as living fire-brands, still infest the neighbor- 
hood. The caves which exist in the lime-stone cliffs around 
give an idea of his place of retreat in " the top of the rock 
Etam," as well as of David's sojourn, in the same locality, 
in the cave of Adullam. There amid the palm trees and 
gardens of pomegranates and mulberry, which surround the 
ruins of what once was Gaza, was the scene of Samson's 
later deeds and of his fall. There, too, he drew down upon 
himself and the pride of Philistia, in its hour of insolent tri- 
umph, the temple of Dagon ; so that " the dead which he 
slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his 
life." 

The present state of Philistia could not be expressed 
more truly and forcibly than in the very words spoken as 
prophecy five hundred years before the coming of our Lord. 
. . . " Thou, whole Palestina, art dissolved ! " It is em- 
phatically a land of ruins, and both the villages and their 
inhabitants are poor and wretched. 

Of the once famous Gath, the birthplace of Goliath and 
his giant brethren, not a vestige remains. A probable site 
has been assigned for it by Dr. Robinson, but it has been 
literally swept from the face of the earth. Amos vi. 2. 

" Nor has prophecy been less strikingly verified in the 
case of the other cities of the Philistine plain. All vestiges 
of the ancient walls and former strength of Gaza have dis- 
appeared. Columns of marble and granite are scattered in 
the streets and gardens of the modern village, and used as 
thresholds at the gates and doors of houses. 'Baldness is 
come upon Gaza.' Jer. xlvii. 5. 

" Ashdod, where the ark of God was brought into the 



302 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

temple of Dagon, and humbled, ' that twice battered god 
of Palestine ' in the eyes of his worshippers, — a city famous 
in history, as having sustained a siege of twenty-nine years 
by one of the kings of Egypt, is now an insignificant village. 
A succession of calamities has abased its pride, and thinned 
its population. 'They shall drive out Ashdod at noon- 
day.' Zeph. ii. 4. 

" The modern village of 'Akir represents the Ekron of 
former days, the town from which the ark was conveyed on 
a new cart, drawn by two milch-kine, who took the straight 
way to Beth-shemesh, the nearest point in the hills of Judah. 
It was the shrine of Baalzebub, the 'lord of flies;' but 
the flies have outlived their lord. The town is built of un- 
burnt bricks or mud, with no mark of antiquity to tell of its 
ancient greatness. ' Ekron shall be rooted up.' Zeph. ii. 4. 

" The decay that has come upon the Philistian cities is 
not written in blight or barrenness upon the land. The 
country is everywhere fertile and luxuriant, abounding in 
rich tracts of pasturage, and numerous flocks are seen near 
the villages, giving an aspect of life and cheerfulness to the 
landscape. The bow of its old fighting men has been bro- 
ken, and the spear cut in sunder, but the pastoral life the 
people led in the days of Abimelech still holds its quiet 
round through the seasons : the shepherd's crook is more 
enduring than the warrior's sword. And this was the pic- 
ture of its future fortunes drawn by a Hebrew prophet long 
ago — 'The sea-coast shall be dwellings and cottages for 
shepherds, and folds for flocks.' " 



SACKED GEOGRAPHY. 303 



BETHLEHEM. 

" But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thou- 
sands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be 
ruler in Israel ; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlast- 
ing." — Micah v. 2. 

The associations which cluster around the little town of 
Bethlehem, and which are familiar as household words 
wherever the Bible has come, equal, perhaps exceed in in- 
terest, those of any other spot on the whole earth. Apart 
from these, it possesses little claim to consideration. " It 
was," says Stanley, " but the ordinary type of a Judsean 
village, not distinguished by size or situation from any 
amongst ' the thousands of Judah.' All the characteristics 
of Bethlehem are essentially of this nature. Its high posi- 
tion on the narrow ridge of the long gray hill would leave 
' no room ' for the crowded travellers to find shelter ; its 
southern situation made it always a resting-place, probably 
the first halting-place from Jerusalem on the way to Egypt. 
4 By Bethlehem ' in ancient times was the Caravanserai or 
Khan of Chimham (Jer. xli. 17), son of Barzillai, for -those 
who would ' go to enter into Egypt ; ' and from Bethle- 
hem, it may be, from that same caravanserai, Joseph 
1 arose and took the young child and his mother and de- 
parted into Egypt.' The familiar well appears close by the 
gate, for whose water David longed. Eastward extend the 
wild hills, where the flocks and herds of David, and of Amos, 
and of ' the shepherds abiding with their flocks by night,' 
may have wandered. Below lie the corn-fields, the scene 
of Ruth's adventures, from which it derives its name, the 
' house of Bread.' " — Stanley's Sinai and Palestine. 

" "We entered the plains of Bethlehem ; it was early in 
the morning, yet there were shepherds abiding in the fields, 
who had been keeping watch over their flocks by night, 
and the black tents of the Bedouins were clustered on the 



304 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

side of a hill, while their sheep and goats pastured round 
them. Every shepherd lad here seemed to possess an in- 
terest, and to represent to us the youthful David as he kept 
his father's sheep on these plains, and fearless slew the lion 
and bear who came to rob his flock." — Woodcock's Scrip- 
ture Lands, 

" What a mighty influence for good," says another trav- 
eller, " has gone forth from this little spot upon the human 
race, both for time and for eternity. The legends and puerilr 
ities of monastic tradition may be safely disregarded. It 
is enough to know that this is Bethlehem, where Jesus 
the Redeemer was born. Generation after generation has, 
indeed, since that time passed away, and their places know 
them no more. For eighteen hundred seasons and more the 
earth has renewed her carpet of verdure, and seen it again 
decay. Yet the skies and the fields, the rocks and the hills 
and the valleys around remain unchanged, and are still the 
same as when the glory of the Lord shone round about the 
shepherds, and the song of a multitude of the heavenly host 
resounded among the hills, proclaiming, ' Glory to God in the 
highest, on earth peace, good will towards men.'" — Robin- 
son's Biblical Researches. 

JEKUSALEM. 

" The city which I have chosen me to put my name there." — 1 Kings 
xi. 36. 

" Of earth's dark circlet once the precious gem 
Of living light — fallen Jerusalem ! " — Southet. 

" On reaching the rocky heights of Beer," writes Mr. 
Jowett, " travelling towards Jerusalem, the country began 
to assume a more wild appearance. Uncultivated hilly 
tracts in every direction, seemed to announce that not only 
Jerusalem, but its vicinity for some miles round, was des- 
tined to sadden the heart of every visitor. Even the stranger 
that should come from a far land, it was predicted, should 



SACKED GEOGRAPHY. 305 

be amazed at the plagues laid upon the country ; and this 
became more than ever literally fulfilled in my feelings as I 
drew near to the metropolis of this chosen nation. Expec- 
tation was indeed wrought up to a high pitch as we ascend- 
ed hill after hill, and beheld others yet more distant rising 
after each other. Being apprehensive lest I should not 
reach the city gate before sunset ... I repeatedly 
desired the guides to ask the Arabs whom we met, how far, 
or, according to the language of this country, how many 
hours, it was to Jerusalem ? The answer we received from 
all was, ' We have been at the prayers at the mosque of 
Omar, and we left at noon ; ' to-day being the Mohamme- 
dan sabbath. We were thus left to calculate the distance. 
The reply sounded very foreign to the ears of one who 
knew that formerly there were scenes of purer worship on 
this spot. ' Thither the tribes go up, the tribes of the 
Lord, to the testimony of Israel, to give thanks unto the 
name of the Lord.' At length, while the sun was yet two 
hours high, my long and intensely interesting suspense was 
relieved. The view of the city burst upon me as in a mo- 
ment ; and the truly graphic language of the Psalmist was 
verified in a degree of which I could have formed no pre- 
vious conception. Continually the expressions were burst- 
ing from my lips — ' Beautiful for situation ; the joy of the 
whole earth is Mount Zion ! They that trust in the Lord 
shall be as Mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but 
abideth forever ! As the mountains are round about Jeru- 
salem, so the Lord is round about his people, from hence- 
forth, even forever ! ' " — Jowett's Chr. Researches. 

" Apart from all associations," says Warburton, " the 
first view of Jerusalem is a most striking one. A brilliant 
and unchequered sunshine has something mournful in it, 
when all that it shines upon is utterly desolate and drear. 
Not a tree or green spot is visible ; no sign of life breaks 
the solemn silence ; no smile of nature's gladness ever 



306 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

varies the stern scenery around. The naming, monotonous 
sunshine above, and the pale, distorted, rocky wastes be- 
neath, realize but too faithfully the prophetic picture — 
" Thy sky shall be brass and thy land shall be iron." To 
the right and left, as far as the eye can reach, vague undu- 
lations of colorless rocks extend to the horizon. A broken 
and desolate plain in front is bounded by a wavy, battle- 
mented wall, over which towers frown, and minarets peer, 
and mosque-domes swell ; intermingled with church turret 
and an indistinguishable mass of terraced roofs. High 
over the city, to the left, rises the Mount of Olives ; and 
the distant hills of Moab, almost mingling with the sky, 
afford a background to the striking picture. ... 

" I am not sure that this stern scenery did not present 
the only appearance that would not disappoint expectation. 
It is unlike anything else on earth — so blank to the eye, 
yet so full of meaning to the heart ; every mountain round 
is familiar to the memory ; even yon blasted fig tree has 
its voice, and the desolation that surrounds us bears silent 
testimony to fearful experiences. The plain upon which 
we stand looks like the arena of deadly struggle in times 
gone by — struggles in which all the mighty nations of the 
earth took part, and in which Nature herself seems to have 
shared. 

" As we advanced, some olive trees appeared, and deep 
valleys on the left, slightly marked with pale, green gar- 
dens. An enclosure concealed the prospect for a while, 
and then again the City of Zion appeared, shadowing with 
its battlemented walls the barren rocks around. As we 
approached, nothing but these walls were visible, presenting 
probably, with their massive gates and lofty towers, the 
same appearance as they wore when they first opened to 
the desiring eyes of the Crusaders " — a scene which Tasso 
has so vividly described. 



SACKED GEOGRAPHY. 307 

" Swiftly they march'd, yet were not tired thereby, 
For willing minds make heaviest burdens light. 
But when the gliding sun was mounted -high, 
Jerusalem (behold) appear' d in sight ; 
Jerusalem they view, they see, they spy, 
Jerusalem with merry noise they greet, 
With joyful shouts, and acclamations sweet. 

"To that delight which their first sight did breed, 
That pleased so the summit of their thought, 

A deep repentance did forthwith succeed, 
That reverend fear, and trembling with it brought. 

Scantly they durst their feeble eyes dispreed, 
Upon that town, where Christ was sold and bought, 

"Where for our sins he faultless suffer'd pain, 

There where he died, and where he lived again. 

11 Their naked feet trod on the dusty way, g 
Following th' ensample of their zealous guide. 

Their scarfs, their crests, their plumes and feathers gay 
They quickly cleft, and willing laid aside, 

Their moulten hearts their wonted pride allay ; 
Along their watery cheeks warm tears down slide." 

Fairfax's Tasso, Cant. hi. v. 6, 7. 

Although the denunciations of divine prophecy have 
been so remarkably fulfilled in the desolations which have 
overtaken the holy city, yet there are certain ineffaceable 
features which still remain to attest the fidelity of the 
sketches so frequently drawn in the Book of Truth. The 
hills which surround it for nearly twenty miles on every 
side, forcibly image forth the security that encompasses 
the people of God. The two parallel ridges upon which 
the ancient city was built, with a valley between them, are 
the grand land marks of the present city. The eastern 
is Mount Moriah on which the Mosque of Omar occupies 
the place of the Temple of Solomon. "Within under the 
dome, is a mass of limestone rock, the natural surface of 
the mount, on which may be seen marks of chiselling. The 
place where the Jewish altar of burnt-offering stood, has 



308 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

been identified by a bore in the solid rock, which " corre- 
sponds exactly with the description given in the Mishna of 
the drain and cesspool communicating with the sewer that 
ran off into the Kidron." — Conybeare and Hewson, ii. 257. 
In the huge foundation stones of the wall enclosing the 
Haram area, now the Jewish waiting place, we have un- 
doubted portions of the original temple. To the west of 
Moriah is Mount Zion, on which an oblong castle represents 
the ancient tower of David, and probably may have sprung 
out of its ruins. The valley between is that of the Tyro- 
poeon, once spanned by the magnificent viaduct erected 
by Solomon, "the ascent by which he went up to the 
house of the Lord," which so impressed the Queen of Sheba 
with the wise king's greatness " that there was no more 
spirit in her." Unequivocal remains of this noble work, 
it is said, have been recently discovered. Rising to the 
east, is seen the gray ridge of Olivet over which David 
once fled from Absalom, and on whose brow a greater 
than David once paused and dropt his tears, on the way- 
side stones. " As now the dome of the mosque rises like a 
ghost from the earth, so then must have risen the temple 
tower ; as now the vast enclosure of the Mussulman sanc- 
tuary, so then must have spread the temple courts ; as now 
the gray town on its broken hills, so then the magnificent 
city, with its background of gardens and suburbs on the 
western plateau behind. It is hardly possible to doubt 
that this rise and turn of the road, this rocky ledge, was 
the exact spot where the multitude paused again, and ' He 
beheld the city, and wept over it.' " Beneath the rocky 
side of Moriah is still found the pool of Siloam, and the 
well of En Rogel where Jonathan and Ahimaaz tarried 
yet marks the ancient border between Judah and Benja- 
min. The valleys of Gihon, Hinnom, and Jehosaphat still 
intrench the city round about, and the brook Kidron pur- 
sues its course as of old, where a grove of ancient and 



SACKED GEOGEAPHY. 309 

magnificent olive trees still marks the garden of Geth- 
semane. However apocryphal may be the sites which have 
been for many ages associated with scenes of the most 
sacred interest, there are features so strongly marked and 
unmistakable as to make it absolutely certain that most 
of the prominent localities of the holy city may still be 
identified. Scepticism may smile at the superstitions con- 
nected with alleged holy places, but here, it cannot be 
doubted, is the City of David and Solomon — where the 
visible presence of Jehovah was vouchsafed — where proph- 
ets were wrapped in heavenly visions — where the chosen 
tribes came up to worship — and above all where that death 
was perpetrated which has opened our way to life. How 
terribly the atrocities which marked that event have been 
avenged, the desolations which have continued even to the 
present time, bear impressive testimony. 

" Mourn, Salem ! mourn ! Low lies thine humbled state ; 

Thy glittering fanes are levelled with the ground ; 
Fallen is thy pride — thine halls are desolate ! 

Where erst was heard the timbrel's sprightly sound, 

And frolic pleasure tripped the nightly round. 
There breeds the wild fox lonely, and aghast 

Stands the mute pilgrim at the void profound ; 
Unbroke by noise — save when the hurrying blast 
Sighs like a spirit, deep along the cheerless waste ! 

" It is for this, proud Solyma, thy towers 

Lie crumbling in the dust ; for this, forlorn 
Thy genius wails along thy desert bowers ; 

While stern destruction laughs, as if in scorn, 

That thou didst dare insult God's eldest born ; 
And with most bitter persecuting ire 

Pursued his footsteps, till the last day dawn 
Rose on his fortunes — and thou saw'st the fire 
That came to light the world, in one great flash expire." 



310 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE, 

THE ROAD EROM JERUSALEM TO JERICHO. 

The parable of the good Samaritan has rendered the long 
and rugged pass which leads from Jerusalem to Jericho 
forever famous, and its incidents still find striking illustra- 
tion in the wild and gloomy scenery. " The road winds 
through the bottom of savage gorges, or rises steeply 
along the edge of the precipices, only to sink deeper into 
narrow passes and glens still more desolate, cloven through 
naked cliffs of limestone. Here, without an escort, some- 
times with one, the traveller may still ' fall among thieves ; ' 
and none can pass that way, through the heart of these 
stern and rugged solitudes, without a sensation of awe and 
peril. A particular part of the road, the scene of many a 
murder, was called the red or bloody way / and here in 
Jerome's time a fort was placed with a Roman garrison, 
for the protection of travellers." " The region," says an 
American writer, " is so scarred, gashed, and torn, that no 
work of mankind can save it from perpetual desolation. 
It is a wilderness more hopeless than the desert. If I were 
left alone in the midst of it, I should lie down and await 
death without thought or hope of rescue." " The heat re- 
flected from those ghastly walls of rock, the sultry ash- 
colored vapor brooding over the white hollows like the 
smoke of a furnace, with no breath of air to lift it, the 
scorching sirocco blowing in fiery gusts, rendering the 
'going down' into the Jordan valley a most fatiguing 
journey; and the frightful sterility and silence of the 
place gives one an impression, till then unfelt, of the hor- 
rors of the situation in which a traveller would find him- 
self stretched bleeding by the wayside and left to die." — 
Rev. J. D. Burns. 

THE DEAD SEA. 

This sea is called in sacred writ the Salt Sea, the Sea of 
the Plain, and the East Sea. It occupies what was formerly 



SACRED GEOGRAPHY. 311 

the valley of Siddim, in which stood the five cities of the 
plain — Sodom, Gomorrah, Adinah, Zeboiim,and Bela. These 
guilty cities were utterly destroyed by the righteous ven- 
geance of the Almighty, and their very sites have been hid 
from the face of heaven by waters that are unique among 
all the waters of the earth. — Vid. Gen. xiii. xiv. xix. 

"The inference from the Bible," says Lieut. Lynch, 
" that the entire chasm was a plain sunk and ' overwhelm- 
ed ■ by the wrath of God, seems to be sustained by the 
extraordinary character of the soundings. The bottom of 
this sea consists of two submerged plains, an elevated and 
a depressed one ; the former averaging thirteen, the latter 
about thirteen hundred feet below the surface. Through 
the northern, and largest and deepest one, in a line corre- 
sponding with the bed of the Jordan, is a ravine, which 
again seems to correspond with the Wady el-Jeib, at the 
south end of the sea. 

" Between the Jabbok and this sea, we unexpectedly 
found a sudden break down in the bed of the Jordan. If 
there be a similar break in the water-courses to the south of 
the sea, accompanied with like volcanic characters, there can 
scarce be a doubt that the whole Ghor has sunk from some 
extraordinary convulsion ; preceded, most probably, by an 
eruption of fire, and a general conflagration of the bitumen 
which abounded in the plain. I shall ever regret that we 
were not authorized to explore the southern Ghor to the 
Red Sea. . . . 

" It is for the learned to comment on the facts we have 
laboriously collected. Upon ourselves the result is a de- 
cided one. We entered upon this sea with conflicting 
opinions. One of the party was sceptical, and another, I 
think, a professed unbeliever of the Mosaic account. After 
twenty-two days' close investigation, if I am not mistaken, 
we are unanimous in the conviction of the truth of the 
Scriptural accounts of the destruction of the cities of the 



312 TESTIMOOT of science to the bible. 

plain. I record with diffidence the conclusions we have 
reached, simply as a protest against the shallow deductions 
of would-be unbelievers." — Lynch's Expedition. 

11 Yes, on that plain, by wild waves covered now, 
Rose palace once, and sparkling pinnacle ; 
On pomp and spectacle beamed morning's glow, 
On pomp and festival the twilight fell. 

" Lovely and splendid all — but Sodom's soul 

Was stained with blood, and pride, and perjury ; 
Long warned, long spared, till her whole heart was foul, 
And fiery vengeance on its clouds came nigh. 

" And still she mocked, and danced, and taunting, spoke 
Her sportive blasphemies against the Throne : 
It came ! — the thunder on her slumber broke — 

God spake the word of wrath ! — Her dream was done." 

Croly. 

ENGEDI. 

u And David went up from thence, and dwelt in strongholds at En- 
gedi." — 1 Samuel xxiii. 29. 

This locality has always, until recently, been sought at 
the north end of the Dead Sea ; but Seetzen, a Russian 
traveller, having recognized the ancient name in the Ain- 
jidy of the Arabs, ascertained its true situation at a point 
of the western shore, nearly equidistant from both extremi- 
ties of the lake. It was here that David and his men lived 
among the " rocks of the wild goats," and where the former 
cut off the skirts of Saul's robe in a cave. 1 Sam. xxiv. 1-4. 

" We had no question," writes Dr. Robinson, " that this 
spot is the ancient En-gedi. With this name the present 
'Ain Jidy of the Arabs is identical, and like it also, signifies 
the 'Fountain of the Kid. 5 The more ancient Hebrew 
name was Hazazon-Tamar. As such it was first mentioned 
before the destruction of Sodom, as being inhabited by 
Amorites and near to the cities of the plain. Under the 



SACKED GEOGRAPHY. 313 

name En-gedi, it occurs as a city of Judah in the desert, 
giving its name to a part of the desert to which David 
withdrew for fear of Saul. At a later period, bands of 
the Moabites and Amorites came up against King Jehos- 
aphat, apparently around the south end of the Dead Sea, as 
far as to En-gedi ; by the very same route, it would seem, 
which is taken by the Arabs in their marauding expeditions 
at the present day, along the shore as far as to 'Ain Jidy, 
and then up the pass and so northwards below Tekoa. 
According to Josephus, En-gedi lay upon the lake Asphaltis, 
and was celebrated for beautiful palm-trees and opobalsam ; 
while its vineyards are likewise mentioned in the Old Tes- 
tament. From it towards Jerusalem there was an ascent 
4 by the cliff Ziz,' which seems to have been none other 
than the present pass. In the days of Eusebius and Jerome, 
En-gedi was still a large village on the shore of the Dead 
Sea." — Bib. Bes., vol. ii. 



THE JORDAN. 

" And Joshua . . . came to Jordan, he and all the children of Israel, 
and lodged there before they passed over." — Josh. iii. 1. 

"This celebrated stream, which, though it cannot boast, 
like other famous rivers, of splendid cities and marts of 
commerce on its banks, yet far surpasses them all in illus- 
trious and hallowed associations, is probably little altered, 
since Joshua with the Israelites approached the fords or 
passages about two miles from its mouth. At that time, 
the sacred writer informs us, the river Jordan ' overflowed 
all its banks,' in the first month, or at the time of harvest. 
The original Hebrew expresses in these passages nothing 
more than that ' the Jordan was full (or filled) up to all its 
banks,' meaning the banks of its channel ; it ran with full 
banks, or was brimfull. . . . 

" Thus understood, the Biblical account corresponds en- 
14 

/ 



314 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

tirely to what we find to be the case at the present day. 
The Israelites crossed the Jordan four days before the 
Passover (Easter). . . . Then, as now, the harvest occur- 
red during April and early in May, the barley preceding 
the wheat harvest by two or three weeks. Then, as now, 
there was a slight annual rise of the river, which caused it 
to flow at this season with full banks, and sometimes to 
spread its waters even over the immediate banks of its 
channel, where they are lowest, so as in some places to fill 
the low tract covered with trees and vegetables along its 
sides. 

" The low bed of the river, and the absence of inunda- 
tion and of tributary streams, combine to leave the greater 
portion of the Ghor a solitary desert. Such it is described 
in antiquity, and such we find it at the present day. Jose- 
phus speaks of the Jordan as flowing ' through a desert ; ' 
and of this plain as in summer scorched by heat, insalubri- 
ous, and watered by no stream except the Jordan." Lieut. 
Lynch describes its banks as exhibiting " a bright line of 
verdure amid a cheerless waste." 

" Such is the Jordan and its valley ; that venerated stream 
celebrated on almost every page of the Old Testament as 
the border of the Promised Land, whose floods were mira- 
culously ( driven back ' to afford a passage for the Israelites. 
In the ISTew Testament it is stili more remarkable for the 
baptism of our Saviour ; when the heavens were opened, 
and the Spirit of God descended upon him, and, lo, a voice 
from Heaven, saying, ' This is my beloved Son ! ' We now 
stood upon its shores, and had bathed in its waters, and felt 
ourselves surrounded by hallowed associations. The exact 
places of these and other events connected with this part of 
Jordan, it is vain to seek after ; nor is this necessary, in or- 
der to awaken and fully to enjoy all the emotions which the 
region around is adapted to inspire." — Robinson's Bib. Res. 



CHAPTER X. 

TOPOGRAPHICAL ACCURACY OF THE INSPIRED WEITEES 

CONTINUED. 

Not the least interesting among the results of topo- 
graphical discovery in the Holy Land is the identification 
of ancient 

GIBEON. 
" The high place at Gibeon." — 1 Chron. xxi. 29. 

This town, so celebrated in Old Testament History, 
seems to have derived its name from the natural locality of 
its site, its meaning being the hill place or city. It is first 
mentioned in connection with the deception practised by 
the inhabitants upon Joshua, by which, although belonging 
to the accursed race of the Canaanites, they induced the 
Jewish leader not only to make a league with them, and to 
spare their lives and cities, but also in their defence to make 
war upon the five kings by whom they were besieged. It 
was in the great battle that followed, that the sun stood 
still upon Gibeon. (Joshua x. 12-14.) See also Joshua 
xi. 19, xviii. 25, xxi. 17 ; 2 Sam. ii. 12-23, iii. 30, xx. 8-12; 
1 Kings iii ; Jer. xli, 12, etc. 

" The situation of Gibeon has fortunately been recover- 
ed with as great certainty as any ancient site in Palestine. 
The traveller who pursues the northern camel-road from 
Jerusalem, turning to the left at Tuleil el-ful (Gibeah), finds 
himself ... in a district . . . where the hills are more iso- 



316 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

lated than those through which he has been passing. ... 
Retaining its ancient name almost intact, El-Jib stands on 
the northernmost of a couple of these hills, just at the place 
where the road to the sea parts into two branches. . . Its 
distance from Jerusalem by the main road is six and a half 
miles ; but there is a more direct road reducing it to five 
miles. 1 " — Smith's Biblical Dictionary. 

After the conquest by Joshua, says Dr. Robinson, " the 
place fell to the lot of Benjamin, and became a Levitical 
city, where the tabernacle was set up for many years under 
David and Solomon. The ark at this time was at Jerusa- 
lem. Here the latter youthful monarch offered a thousand 
burnt-offerings ; and in a dream by night communed with 
God, and asked for himself a wise and understanding heart, 
instead of riches and honor. Here, too, it was that Abner's 
challenge to Joab terminated in the defeat and flight of the 
former, and the death of Asahel ; and here, also, at a later 
period, Amasa was treacherously slain by Joab. 

"The village of El-Jib is situated upon an isolated ob- 
long hill or ridge, which rises in a beautiful plain, bounded 
on the west and south by mountains. 

" This hill is in some parts steep and difficult of access, 
and capable of being everywhere very strongly fortified. . . 
It may be said to stand in the midst of a basin, composed 
of broad valleys or plains, cultivated, and full of grain, 
vineyards, and orchards of olive and fig trees. It was de- 
cidedly the finest part of Palestine that I had yet seen. . . 

" We reached the village of El- Jib, situated on the sum- 
mit of this hill. . . . It is of moderate size ; . . . the houses 
stand very irregularly and unevenly, sometimes almost one 
above another. They seem to be chiefly rooms in old mas- 
sive ruins, which have fallen down in every direction. One 
large massive building still remains, perhaps a former castle 
or tower of strength ; . . . the whole appearance is that of 
antiquity. Towards the east the ridge sinks a little ; and 






TOPOGRAPHICAL ACCURACY. 317 

here, a few rods from the village, just below the top of the 
ridge, is a fine fountain of water. It is in a cave excavated 
in and under the high rock, so as to form a large subterra- 
nean reservoir. Not far below it, among the olive trees, 
are the remains of another open reservoir. ... It was 
doubtless anciently intended to receive the superfluous 
waters of the cavern. At this time no stream was flowing 
from the latter. It is not difficult to recognize in El-Jib 
and its rocky eminence the ancient Gibeon of the Scrip- 
tures ; . . . (and) the ' Pool of Gibeon/ mentioned in the 
story of Abner, may well be the waters of the fountain de- 
scribed (above) ; and these are also probably 'the great' 
(or many) 'waters in Gibeon,' spoken of in Jeremiah 
xli. 12." — Robinson's Bib. Bes., v. ii. pp. 135-8. 

The ancient Gibeon " is situated on the top of a re- 
markably round hill, the sides of which are so completely 
terraced, not by art, but by nature, that they present the 
appearance of a flight of steps all round, from the top to 
the bottom. The buildings are mostly on the western brow 
of the hill, the rest of the summit being covered with fine 
olive trees. Many of the terraces are also set with vines 
and fruit trees. . . . The scene of Joshua's miracle was 
vividly set before us. The glorious sun was sloping west- 
ward, about to sink in the Mediterranean Sea, and his hori- 
zontal rays were falling full upon the hill of Gibeon ; at the 
same time the moon was rising, and soon after poured her 
silver beams into the quiet vale (beneath). It was strangely 
interesting to look upon the scene where ' the Lord heark- 
ened unto the voice of man.'" — Narrative of Mission to the 
Jews, pp. 201, 202. 

Of the valley beneath Gibeon, the traveller Carne writes 
that it u is of sufficient breadth and compass to allow of a 
numerous host engaging in its bosom, and presents as fine a 
field of battle as two armies could desire. The Amorites 
were probably surprised by Joshua, as they were encamped 



318 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

in this valley, and hemmed in by hills on each side ; as it is 
said, 'he came suddenly upon them;' and after a bloody 
combat, they fled along the valley, whose enclosed space 
afforded great advantage to the pursuers, as it appeared to 
be from twelve to fifteen miles in length. On the summit 
of a lofty hill, in the bosom of the valley, Gibeon is sup- 
posed to have stood, as there is a hamlet of the name of 
El-Jib still standing on the site ; and this site agrees with 
the description given. The peculiar and bold aspect of this 
memorable valley must have greatly aided the effect of the 
miracle. The high hill of Gibeon, towards the west, over- 
looked the whole region ; and the royal city on its summit, 
just before besieged by the confederate kings, was the meed 
for which both armies fought — the one to save, the other to 
destroy. It may be inferred that the day was waning on 
the slaughter of the vanquished, who fled along the valley 
to the opposite extremity to which their conqueror had 
entered ; and while the declining rays were thrown redly 
on the lofty hill and the city that crowned it, Joshua utter- 
ed the command: Sun, stand thou still on Gibeon, and thou, 
moon, in the valley of Ajalon. It would seem, too, that the 
destroying storm from on high fell not on the flying Amor- 
ites, until, issuing from the valley, they descended on the 
wide plain beyond. Here, scattering themselves on every 
side, they could more easily avoid the pursuer's sword, from 
whose edge the greater part would have escaped, but that 
they fell by a Divine arrest. 

In what manner the sword of Israel was seconded by 
the artillery of Heaven, whether by a hail storm of uncom- 
mon fierceness or by the falling of the bodies called aero- 
lites, it is impossible to determine. The effects were the 
same in the destruction of the Canaanites, and on either 
supposition we must recognize the finger of God, since the 
timing of the tempest to that end, and its not touching the 
Israelites, sufficiently indicated a supernatural interposi- 






TOPOGRAPHICAL ACCURACY. 319 

tion. That hailstones have descended of force enough to 
destroy life, is proved by the account of one of the plagues 
of Egypt having been a storm of that description, and is 
confirmed by other historians. Thus Albertus Aquensis 
relates that Baldwin I. and his army, when in the vicinity 
of the Dead Sea, " suffered incredibly from horrid hail, and 
otter atmospheric influences, so that many lives were lost." 
The other miracle wrought upon this memorable occa- 
sion has been a fruitful source of cavil to the sceptic and 
unbeliever. The objection drawn from its want of scien- 
tific accuracy of statement — that it seems to represent the 
sun as moving round the earth instead of the earth moving 
round the sun — is readily met by the answer that the lan- 
guage used is adapted to the appearance, not the reality of 
things. But a more serious objection to the narrative is 
the derangement which the alleged occurrence must have 
occasioned. The course of nature would have been gen- 
erally interrupted. Such a sudden check to the earth's 
motion would have been, by means of the atmosphere, to 
crush at once all animal and vegetable existence — to level 
with the ground the loftiest and most massive structures, 
and, in fact, to sweep the w T hole surface of the globe as 
with the besom of destruction. To this perhaps it were 
sufficient to reply that He who was able to work so great 
a miracle was also able to counteract any evil conse- 
quences that might result from it. But another explana- 
tion has been suggested which, without resorting to such 
an interference, entirely obviates the difficulty. The expres- 
sion rendered in our English version " the midst of heaven," 
may be rendered the division of heaven, or the visible ho- 
rizon. Also the word rendered sun may be rendered solar 
light. The account admits, therefore, of being read thus : 
The solar light lingered on the horizon, and hastened not to 
go down about a whole day. Now it is well known that 
through the operation of the laws of refraction and reflec- 



320 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE EIBLE. 






tion, the sun's disc is ordinarily seen above the horizon 
some time after he has really sunk below it. Without, 
therefore, the progress of nature having been either de- 
layed or accelerated, it is evident that Almighty power 
could on this memorable occasion have so altered the me- 
dium through which the sun's rays passed, as to render it 
visible above the horizon longer after it would, under ordi- 
nary circumstances, have disappeared. This, to the appre- 
hension of the Israelites, would have had all the visible 
effects of staying the career of the sun ; and to ours that 
of arresting the earth's revolution on its axis ; and this is 
all that the sacred text requires, while it satisfies all the 
conditions of the miracle. 






MIZPEH. 
" And Samuel said, Gather all Israel to Mizpeh." — 1 Sam. vii. 5. 

Mizpeh of Benjamin is probably to be found at the spot 
now called Neby Samwil, or the Tomb of Samuel, at which 
tradition (but without sufficient reason) asserts that the 
prophet was buried. 

The name Mizpeh, which signifies " a place of look-out — 
a watch tower," implies that it was situated on an elevated 
spot. Neby Samwil is on a conspicuous height, and is vis- 
ible from Jerusalem and many other parts. Traces of an 
ancient town are visible upon it. 

" We now had before us the elevated ridge of Neby 
Samwil. Our way led us directly to the summit, up the 
steep but not difficult ascent of the northwestern side. 
The top is crowned by a small miserable village and a neg- 
lected mosque. The mosque is here the principal object ; 
it is now in a state of great decay. There are few houses 
now inhabited, but many traces of former dwellings. In 
some parts the rock, which is soft, has been hewn away for 
several feet in height, so as to form the walls of houses : 



TOPOGRAPHICAL ACCURACY. 321 

two or three reservoirs are, in like manner, hewn in the 
rock. These cuttings and levellings extend over a consid- 
erable space. The view from the roof of the mosque is 
very commanding in every direction ; the deep Wady Beit 
Henina, Jerusalem, the Mount of Olives, the Frank Moun- 
tain, and a large portion of the eastern slope, with the 
mountains beyond the Jordan and the Dead Sea. In the 
northwest the fertile plain of Gibeon lies immediately be- 
low ; and farther on the eye embraces a large extent of the 
great lower plain along the coast, as well as of the Mediter- 
ranean itself. In a clear day Jaffa may be distinctly seen. 
A large number of villages were visible on every side." — 
Robinson's lies., vol. i. pp, 130, 140. 

" The hill on which the village and mosque of Neby 
Samwil now stand is not only the most conspicuous object 
round El-Jib, but also in the surrounding country. It rises 
abruptly to a height of 500 or GOO feet above the little plain 
of Gibeon ; and its sides, though here and there broken by 
cliffs, are almost everywhere cultivated in terraces, along 
which the fig and the vine grow luxuriantly . . . From the 
summit we gain a wider view than from any other peak in 
southern Palestine." — Poetep.'s Hand Booh, p. 225. 

The best and latest investigators now unite in attesting 
that here was the ancient Mizpeh, a famous city of Ben- 
jamin, where the tribes often assembled ; where Samuel 
offered sacrifice and judged the people ; where Saul was 
chosen king by lot ; and where, under the Chaldeans, Ged- 
aliah the governor resided and was assassinated. " Of all 
the points of interest about Jerusalem," says Stanley, "none 
perhaps gains so much from an actual visit to Palestine as 
the lofty peaked eminence which fills up the northwest cor- 
ner of the table land ; seen in every direction, the highest 
elevation in the whole country south of Hermon, command- 
ing a view far wider than that of Olivet, inasmuch as it in- 
cludes the western plain and Mediterranean Sea on one 
14* 



322 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE. BIBLE. 

side, as well as Olivet and Jerusalem in the distance backed 
by the range of Moab. It is in fact the point from which 
travellers mounting by the ancient route through the pass 
of Beth-horen obtained their earliest view of the interior 
of the hills of Palestine. 'It is a very fair and delicious 
place,' says Mandeville, 'and it is called Mount .Joy, because 
it gives joy to pilgrims' hearts ; for from that place men 
first see Jerusalem.' " Canon Stanley also identifies this local- 
ity with Mizpeh. 

SHILOH. 

"Go ye now to my place wh'.ch was in Skiloh, where I set my name at 
the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel." 
— Jer. vii. 12. 

The site of this most interesting locality was entirely 
unknown until its discovery by Dr. Robinson, A. D. 1848. 
An old tradition had placed it at Neby Samwil, in quite a 
different district of the country, though the slightest refer- 
ence to the statement of Scripture regarding its actual po- 
sition would have shown it to be untenable. 

"A prominent object of our inquiries in this region 
(Dr. Robinson was travelling from Jerusalem to Sichem, 
and was now about halfway between Bethel and the latter 
place) was the ancient Shiloh, celebrated in the history of 
the Israelites as the place where the ark remained from the 
time of Joshua to Solomon. Our guide yesterday spoke 
of a ruin called Seilun ; of which there was a saying among 
the people that, were the Franks to visit it, they would 
deem it of such importance that they would not go away in 
less than a day. On inquiring farther, we found that the 
place in question lay not very far from the road, and might 
be visited by a small circuit. As the position seemed to an- 
swer well to that of Shiloh, we determined to go thither. 
. . . The ruins of Seilun are surrounded by hills, but look- 
ing out through a small valley towards a beautiful plain . . . 



TOPOGRAPHICAL ACCURACY. 323 

The position is in itself a fine one for strength, if it were 
ever fortified, though it is commanded by the neighboring 
hills. Among the ruins of modern houses are many large 
stones and some fragments of columns, showing the place 
to have been an ancient site. Our guide told us of a foun- 
tain up through the narrow valley towards the east. We 
went thither, and found that the valley here breaks through 
a ridge, and is at first shut in by perpendicular walls of 
rock ; then follows a more open tract ; and here, at the left, 
fifteen minutes from Seilun, is the fountain. The water is 
excellent, and issues from the rocks first into a sort of arti- 
ficial well, eight or ten feet deep, and thence into a reservoir 
lower down. Many flocks and herds were waiting round 
about. In the sides of the narrow valley are many exca- 
vated tombs, now much broken away; near the fountain 
are also several. 

" The position of Shiloh is very definitely described in 
the Book of Judges as i on the north side of Bethel, on the 
east side of the highway that goeth up from Bethel to She- 
chem, and on the south of Lebonah.' (Judges xxi. 19-23.) 
These circumstances correspond exactly to Seilun ; for we 
were on the east of the great road between Bethel and 
Shechem ; and in passing on towards the latter place we 
came, after an hour, to the village of Lebonah, now El- 
Lubban. Here, then, was Shiloh, where the tabernacle was 
set up after the country had been subdued before the Israel- 
ites ; and where the last and general division of the land 
was made among the tribes. The ark and tabernacle long 
continued here from the days of Joshua, during the minis- 
try of all the judges, until the close of Eli's life ; and here 
Samuel was dedicated to God, and his childhood spent in 
the sanctuary. In honor of the presence of the ark there 
was ' a feast of the Lord in Shiloh yearly, during which the 
daughters of Shiloh came out to dance in dances ; and it 
was on such an occasion that they were seized and carried 



324 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

off by the remaining Benjamites as wives. The scene of 
these dances may not improbably have been somewhere 
around the fountain above described. From Shiloh the ark 
was at length removed to the army of Israel ; and being 
captured by the Philistines, returned no more to its former 
place. Shiloh henceforth, though sometimes the residence 
of prophets, as of Ahijah, celebrated in the history of Jero- 
boam, is nevertheless spoken of as forsaken and accursed of 
God. It is mentioned in Scripture during the exile, but not 
afterwards ; and Jerome speaks of it in his day as so utterly 
in ruins, that the foundations of an altar could scarcely be 
pointed out." — Biblical Researches. 

" Shiloh is so utterly featureless, that, had it not been for 
the preservation of its name (Seilun), and for the extreme 
precision with which its situation is described in the Book 
of Judges, the spot could never have been identified ; and, 
indeed, from the time of Jerome till the year 1838, its real 
site was completely forgotten, and its name was transferred 
to that commanding height of Gibeon, which a later age 
naturally conceived to be a more congenial spot for the 
sacred place, where for so many centuries was the tent 
which He had pitched among men, — 

* Our living Dread, who dwells 
In Silo, his bright Sanctuary.' 

Its ruins were scattered over a slight eminence which rises 
in one of those softer and wider plains before noticed as 
characteristic of this part of Palestine, a little removed 
from the great central route of the country." — Stanley's 
Sinai and Palestine. 

shechem. 

" And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Sichem." — 
Gen. xii. 6. . 

This celebrated locality is distant from Jerusalem be- 
tween thirty and forty miles, about ten from Shiloh and 



TOPOGRAPHICAL ACCURACY. 325 

seven from the city of Samaria. Its present name is Na- 
blus, a corruption of the word Neapolis., or new town, the 
Greek name given it by the Romans, and this is one of the 
rare instances in which the ancient Oriental appellation has 
been superseded in popular language by a more modern 
one. It is believed that the present town occupies the site 
of the ancient one, but is probably of more contracted 
dimensions. The sacred associations of Shechem are co- 
extensive with the history of the entire Church, as recorded 
both in the Old and in the New Testaments. Here Abra- 
ham first halted when he had crossed the Jordan on his 
way from Chaldrea to the land which God should give him, 
and here God distinctly told him that this was the country 
destined to be the sure possession of his descendants. It 
was afterwards the scene of many memorable events in the 
history of Israel. And here at last came One, whose " day 
Abraham saw afar off and was glad," and who was himself 
" the way " to the everlasting rest prepared for the people 
of God, of which the earthly Canaan was but the type. 

At the entrance of the narrow pass which leads to 
Shechem, stand the two mounts known as the mounts 
respectively of the curses and of the blessings, Mount Ebal 
and Mount Gerizim. " It was here the affecting ceremony 
took place which was commanded by Moses, carried into 
effect by Joshua, and never afterwards repeated. Six of 
the tribes stood over against Gerizim to bless the people, 
and the other six upon Ebal to curse. It would appear 
that the whole of the law was read over by Joshua, and 
that the Levites spoke unto all the men of Israel with a 
loud voice the words of the curse, to which the people 
answered and said Amen. A better situation could not 
be conceived for this purpose, as the hills are at such a 
distance from each other, that the hosts of Israel might 
stand between, and the voice from either side be heard 
distinctly on a calm day throughout the whole assembly. 
It must have been an imposing spectacle: the ark of 



326 TESTIMONY OP SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

the covenant in the centre, surrounded by the elders, 
officers, and judges, with the venerable Joshua at their 
head ; the banners of the tribes marking their different 
positions, as appointed by God, which they were now to 
occupy for the last time, and the millions of Israel extend- 
ing in firm phalanx as far as the eye could reach ; it must 
also be remembered that every individual of that vast com- 
pany had but a little time before beheld the most striking 
wonders performed in their own behalf, the falling down 
of the walls of Jericho, and the dividing of the stream of the 
Jordan, — and when the men, women, children, and stran- 
gers, thinking on these things, with one voice shouted 
Amen, the acclaim must have reverberated among the 
rocks around with true sublimity, and have swelled in 
majestic volumes towards heaven 

"The hills are of equal height, about 800 feet above 
the plain, and are neither of them cultivated, but Gerizim 
has the more pleasing appearance." — Hardy's Notices of 
the Holy Land. 

Between these mountains, in its hallowed seclusion lies 
the spot which links together the sacred history of more 
than three thousand years, but which is specially memor- 
able from the fact that here took place the first recognition 
of the Son of God, as not only the Jewish Messiah, the 
Christ, but the Desire of all nations, the Saviour of the 
world. The whole valley is still remarkable for its beauty, 
and excites the admiration of travellers. It abounds in 
rich gardens, delightful groves, stately trees, and fragrant 
bowers. " One could fancy," says an elegant writer, " that 
the powers of life in nature had been unfettered here ever 
since, in virtue of that acknowledgment; and that the val- 
ley of Sychar (Shechem) was ever after to be a fragment 
and foretaste of paradise, — a place of streams and rest, full 
of all manner of trees pleasant to the eyes, and good for 
food, a little spot of earth visibly subject to the life-giving 



TOPOGRAPHICAL ACCURACY. 327 

sceptre of the ' second Man,' the Lord from Heaven. "No 
place to be compared with this in fertility and beauty ex- 
ists, it is said, in Palestine." 

"We inquired of the Samaritans respecting Jacob's 
"Well. They said they acknowledged the tradition, and 
regarded it as having belonged to the patriarch. It lies 
at the mouth of the valley, near the south side, and is the 
same which the Christians sometimes call ' Well of the 
Samaritan woman." They acknowledge, also, the tomb 
near by as the place of Joseph's burial ; though the pres- 
ent building is only a Mohammedan tomb. Late as it 
was, we took a Christian guide and set off for Jacob's 

Well The well bears evident marks of antiquity, 

but was now dry and deserted •, it was said usually to con- 
tain living water, and not merely to be filled by the rains. 
A large stone was laid loosely over, or rather in its mouth ; 
and as the hour was now late, and the twilight nearly gone, 
we made no attempt to remove the stone and examine the 
vaulted entrance below. We had also no line with us, at 
the moment, to measure the well ; but by dropping in 
stones we could perceive that it was deep. . . . 

.... "I think we may rest with confidence in the 
opinion that this is Jacob's Well, and here the parcel of 
ground which Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Here the 
Saviour, wearied with his journey, sat upon the well, and 
taught the poor Samaritan woman, those great truths which 
have broken down the separating wall between Jews and 
Gentiles : ' God is a spirit, and they that worship him must 
worship him in spirit and in truth.' Here, too, as the peo- 
ple flocked from the city to hear him, He pointed his dis- 
ciples to the waving fields which decked the noble plain 
around, exclaiming, ' Say not ye, there are yet four months, 
and then cometh harvest? behold I say unto you, Lift up 
your eyes, and look on the fields ; for they are white already 
to the harvest." — Robinson's Bib. Bes. 



328 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

"About a hundred yards off (from the well) is Joseph's 
Tomb. Whether by accident or design, a luxuriant vine 
had made its way over the wall that encloses the tomb, and 
was now waving its branches from the top, as if to recall 
to mind the prophetical description of this favored tribe, 
4 Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well, 
whose branches run over the wall." The beautiful field 
around it is, no doubt, the parcel of ground that Jacob 
gave to his son Joseph, taking it out of the hand of the 
Amorite with his sword and with his bow." — Wilson's 
Lands of the Bible, 



SAMARIA. 

" AncL(Omri) bought the hill Samaria ot Shemer for two talents of 
silver, and built on the hill, and called the name of the city which he built, 
after the name of Shemer, owner of the hill, Samaria. . . . 

"And Ahab the son of Omri reigned over Israel, in Samaria, twenty and 
two years." — 1 Kings xvi. 24, 29. 

The above Scripture statement respecting the origin 
of Samaria has received a remarkable confirmation by a 
discovery of Mr. Layard. In exploring the ruins of Nine- 
veh, he met with a tablet on which the city was named 
Beth Khumri or Omri. As he was the builder of the city, 
it was in accordance with Eastern custom that it should 
be called after its founder. The presence of such a tablet 
at Nineveh is accounted for by the fact that the Assyrians 
destroyed Samaria after a siege of three years, and carried 
its inhabitants into captivity. (2 Kings xvii. 5). 

Samaria became the capital of the ten revolted tribes. 
" It had the winter house, and the summer house, and the 
houses of ivory. The wicked Ahab erected on this hill an 
altar to Baal ; in this plain Benhadad, king of Assyria, was 
routed ; in the gate of this city sat the king of Israel and 
the king of Judah, each in his robes, and upon a throne, 



TOPOGRAPHICAL ACCURACY. 329 

when the false prophets delivered their ambiguous predic- 
tion, and Micaiah declared the word of the Lord ; in that 
pool the dogs licked the blood of Ahab, as they had for- 
merly licked the blood of Naboth his victim; up that 
ascent have often toiled the prophets Elijah and Elisha, 
bearing messages of wrath from the Most High; within 
these walls there has been a great famine, so that ' an ass's 
head sold for four score pieces of silver, and a woman 
boiled her own son and did eat him ' ; it was from hence 
that the host of the Syrians fled, because the Lord made 
them to hear a noise of chariots and a noise of horses, 
leaving their camp, as it was, a prey to the famished Sa- 
maritans ; it was here that Jehu slew the worshippers of 
Baal, and brake down their images ; it was after enduring 
a siege of three years in this capital that Hoshea, the last 
of its kings, was carried away captive by the king of 
Assyria ; it contained the royal sepulchre of Israel ; the 
Gospel was here preached by Philip, and confirmed by 
Peter and John, to whom Simon, the sorcerer, offered 
money, that he might receive the Holy Ghost; and it 
suifered in common with its more guilty rival, when Pales- 
tine was subdued by the Roman power." — Hardy's No- 
tices of the Holy Land. 

Dr. Keith, after visiting Samaria, writes : " Few seats 
of royalty can rival its princely site. Its local position is 
most peculiar, of a finely varied and oblong form. The 
isolated hill of Samaria, with a flattened summit, seems as 
if it had been raised by nature at ' the head of the fat 
valley,' to be at once a stronghold and royal seat. But 
now Samaria is become ' as an heap of the field, and as 
plantings of a vineyard.' Stones abound in the mountain- 
ous regions of Israel ; and it is evident that in their terraced 
vineyards the stones have been gathered out of the level 
spaces which are occupied only by the soil, and when freed 
from them were fitted for planting. In some fields in the 



330 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

valleys, the stones have been gathered up, and have been 
cast into heaps which thus form literally 'heaps of the 
field.' Samaria, it is recorded, was utterly demolished 
after its first siege, and must then have formed a great 
mass of ruins. Herod rebuilt it, and it has again been laid 
low and reduced to be as an heap of the field. The stones, 
which yet lie on its surface, bereaved of the glory that 
might seem to hover around a ruin, however defaced, have 
been gathered singly, and cast into heaps, as if they were 
heaps of a field, and not the remains of a. capital. The 
ground has been cleared of them to form the gardens or 
patches of cultivated ground possessed by the inhabitants 
of the wretched village, which stands on the extremity of 
the site of the ancient city. The stones, as if in a field or 
vineyard, have manifestly been gathered up in heaps, to 
prepare the ground for being sown or planted. Lines of 
columns now stand in a field which was covered when we 
saw it with a crop of ripe barley, that was overtopped in 
various places with sixteen heaps of stones within the 
space enclosed by the ancient colonnade. The foundations 
of buildings remain in some places, in long lines, low as 
when they first were laid; and the beasts of the field 
browse among the trees in the bottom of the valley and 
hills, and pasture upon the terraces, where once were vine- 
yards, but where now, after much searching, the leaf of a 
wild vine only was found." — Incidents of Travel, vol. ii. 
p. 301. 

"The vast temple of Baal was there erected, which 
Jehu destroyed ; and in later times, Herod chose it alone 
out of the ancient capitals of the north, to adorn with the 
name and with the temple of Augustus, from which time 
it assumed the appellation which with a slight change it 
has borne ever since, ' Sebaste.' And now, although its 
existence has but been brought fully to light within the 
last few years, it is the only site in western Palestine, be- 



TOPOGRAPHICAL ACCURACY. . 331 

sides Jerusalem, which exhibits relics of ancient architectu- 
ral beauty. A long avenue of broken pillars, apparently 
the main street of Herod's city, here, as at Palmyra and 
Damascus, adorned by a colonnade on each side, still lines 
the topmost terrace of the hill. The Gothic ruin of the 
church of St. John the Baptist, parent of the numerous 
churches which bear his name throughout the West, re- 
mains over what Christians and the Mussulman inhabitants 
still revere as the grave ' of the Prophet John, son of Zach- 
arias,' round which in the days of Jerome the same wild 
orgies were performed which are now to be seen round 
' the Holy Sepulchre.' " — Stanley's Sinai and Palestine. 

"The prophecy concerning Samaria is most distinct, 
and its fulfilment has been exact. I wish an infidel could 
have stood with me and compared the present state of 
Samaria, even in minute particulars, with the prophecy of 
Micah, which I read on the spot. Though Israel's mon- 
archs there swayed the sceptre — though there Herod 
reigned and revelled — though pomp and splendor and the 
glory of this w r orld there shone and dazzled the thousands 
of Israel — yet, Samaria is a desolation. The sceptres are 
broken — the revel is hushed — the splendor has faded. Sa- 
maria is as an heap in the field, and as the plantings of a 
vineyard ; her stones have been literally poured down into 
the valley — her foundations have been indeed discovered — 
and there they now lie ; while from every heap and from 
every fragment there goes forth as it were a testimony 
which cannot be silenced, to the righteous severity of an 
angry God." — Fisk's Pastor's Memorial. 

DOTH AN. 

" And Joseph went after his brethren, and found them in Dothan." — 
Gen. xxxvii. 17. 

About twelve miles north of Samaria, one of the most 
interesting scenes in Old Testament history has recently 



332 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

been discovered. " A few years ago, M. Van de Velde, 
when passing through the plain of Jenin, had his attention 
arrested by a singular looking tell (height), rising up like 
an island near the margin of the level ground, and evident- 
ly covered with ruins. ' What place is that ? » said he to the 
sheikh who was at that time his guide. Haida-Dothan — 
' That is Dothan,' was his immediate and unhesitating reply. 
'Dothan'? said Van de Velde, in an inquiring tone, to 
make sure that he had not mistaken the sheikh's answer. 
Nahm, Dothan — Dothan — Dothan — c Yes, Dothan,' was 
his reply, repeating the word three times over, and evi- 
dently piqued at what he supposed to be a doubting of 
his word. This important fact of the still surviving name, 
when put alongside also of the testimony of Eusebius and 
Jerome, may be considered as having conclusively settled 
the point of its identification. It is certain .that the Dothan 
of Scripture stood on an isolated height. The following 
facts plainly prove this : When Benhadad sent a military 
force to seize Elisha in Dothan, they * came by night, and 
compassed the city round "about.'' In the morning, when 
the prophet's servant looked down from his master's place 
of refuge, and saw that they were hemmed in on every 
side, he was filled with terror. To relieve his fear, the 
Lord, at the request of the prophet, opened the servants 
eyes, and showed him the multitudes of the heavenly host 
by whom they were defended ; in describing whom the 
sacred historian says that ' the mountain (or mount) was 
full of horses of fire and chariots of fire round about Eli- 
sha.' The whole Scripture statement conveys just such an 
idea of the position of Dothan, as answers most exactly to 
the isolated eminence to which Abu Monsur, the guide of 
Van de Velde, gave that name. Further still, the Scrip- 
ture Dothan must have stood near the leading thorough- 
fare by which the Ishmaelite merchants of the East were 
wont to cross the land of Canaan on their way to Egypt. 



TOPOGRAPHICAL ACCURACY. 333 

It was to a caravan of these merchants that Joseph was 
sold by his envious brethren. They had cast him into a 
pit or dry well at Dothan, intending apparently to leave 
him to die there, when 'they lifted up their eyes and 
looked, and behold a company of Ishmaelites came from 
Gilead with their «camels bearing spicery, and balm, and 
myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt.' (Gen. xxxvii. 
25). Now, this tell of Van de Velde is in just such a 
position. The camel road in the direct line from the coun- 
try of Gilead, that leads across the country to the plain of 
Sharon, and so southward along the seacoast to Egypt, 
passes to this day within a few hundred yards of the place." 
— Buchanan's Clerical Furlough. 



MOUNT CARMEL. 

" The excellency of Carmel." — Isaiah xxxv. 2. 
" The top of Carmel shall wither." — Amos i. 2. 

The word Carmel is derived from a verb signifying to 
be noble, and answers to the English word " park." It 
was used to indicate a fruitful field, or a well wooded 
country, in contradistinction to a wilderness or forest land. 
There are two places of this name mentioned in Scripture, 
which should be carefully borne in mind to prevent a con- 
fusion of ideas in reading the Old Testament. " That long 
line of hills," says a modern traveller, describing his en- 
trance into Canaan from the south, " was the beginning of 
the hill country of Judea ; and when we began to ascend, 
the first answer to our inquiries about the route told that 
it was Carmel; not the more famous mountain of that 
name, but that on which Nabal fed his flocks." Carmel is, 
indeed, mentioned in the Bible in connection with the con- 
quest and division of Canaan by Joshua. But it is in the 
reigns of David and Ahab, kings of Israel, that the name 



334 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

"Carmel" becomes associated with instructive events of 
sacred history. 

The northern Carmel, or that of Ahab and Elijah, was 
the boundary of the possessions of the tribe of Asher west- 
ward, and forms one of the most remarkable headlands on 
the whole coast of the Mediterranean* " It is no place," 
writes Mr. Carne, " for crags and precipices, or rocks of 
the wild goats ; it is the finest and most beautiful moun- 
tain in Palestine — in many parts covered with trees and 
flowers." To its woods were compared, by Solomon, the 
glossy tresses of his bride's head. Its rich garniture is re- 
garded by Isaiah as the type of natural beauty ; and the 
withering of its fruits is considered by him and other 
prophets as the type of national desolation. It is not so 
much a mountain as an upland park. It extends from the 
sea many miles into the interior of the country. On the 
top of the part close to the sea is now a convent of bare- 
footed monks, deriving their distinctive name from the 
locality, and celebrated throughout Europe as the Carmel- 
ite monks. Below, towards the sea, i. e., in the cliffs that 
front the water, are caverns, many in number and curiously 
constructed. These, it is supposed, were the hiding places 
of the prophets of the true God when persecuted by the 
idolatrous Jezebel. The remarkable adaptation of these 
caverns, close to the sea, for the purpose of concealment, is 
confirmed by Amos, when he says that even their intricate 
and dark recesses could not conceal the wicked from the 
eye of the Omniscient One : " Though they hide them- 
selves in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them 
out thence ; and though they be hid from my sight in the 
bottom of the sea, thence will I command the serpent, and 
he shall bite them." 

The excellency of Carmel has passed away, and the 
prophet's curse has fallen upon it ; the top of Carmel has 
withered. Its steep sides are often barren and desolate, 



TOPOGRAPHICAL ACCURACY. 335 

while wild vines and olives (showing that it had formerly 
been cultivated), met with among the brambles, together 
witli oaks and cedars, attest its former luxuriance. 

Lamartine thus describes a storm on Mount Carmel: 
" I have witnessed few so terrible. The clouds rose per- 
pendicularly, like towers above Mount Carmel, and soon 
covered all the length of the summit of this chain of hills. 
The mountain just now so brilliant and serene, was plunged 
by degrees in rolling waves of darkness, split here and 
there by trains of fire. The horizon seemed to close 
around us, — the thunder did not burst in claps — it threw 
out one single majestic rolling, continual and deafening. 
The lisjhtnins: mi^ht be truly said to rush like torrents of 
fire from the heavens, on the black flanks of Carmel. The 
oaks on the mount and on the hill on w^hich we were jour- 
neying, bent like young plants. The winds which rushed 
from the caverns, and from between the hills, must have 
swept us from our horses, if we had not speedily alighted, 
and found a little shelter behind a fragment of rock in the 
then dry bed of a torrent. The withered leaves, upraised 
in masses by the storm, were carried above our heads like 
clouds, and the slender, broken branches of the trees shower- 
ed around us. I remembered the Bible and the prodigies of 
Elijah. . . . The storm abated in about half an hour. 
We continued our route along the foot of Mount Carmel, 
which we traced in this way, during a march of about four 
hours. It presented everywhere the same severe and 
solemn aspect. It is a gigantic rock, rising almost perpen- 
dicularly, and everywhere covered by a bed of shrubs and 
odoriferous herbs. The rock is seldom entirely naked." 
" In Leviticus xxvi. 22, we read that wild beasts were to 
be sent amongst the people of that land for their iniquities ; 
even that has a present accomplishment. The monks of 
Mount Carmel reported that in consequence of the disarm- 
ing of the people, and the great decrease of their numbers, 



336 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

wild beasts were increasing on Mount Carmel to an alarm- 
ing degree." — Travels, pp. 255, 358. 

" From this we descended into a valley, passed over a 
plain, and after that again ascended another valley, all be- 
longing to the finest parts of Carmel. At every step the 
ancient glory of Carmel now became more and more evi- 
dent to me. What a memorable morning in this wild 
flower garden! It was at the most inviting season, too, for 
it was spring. The verdure is now fresh and vivid ; the 
vertical sun of summer has not yet scorched it. The haw- 
thorn, the jasmin, and many another tree and shrub, whose 
sweetly odorous and elegant bunches of blossom are un- 
known to me by name, are now in flower. Now it is that 
the fir tree exhales its resinous particles most powerfully ; 
the oak, the myrtle, and the laurel have tempered their 
dark winter green with glittering leaflets of a lighter hue. 
And what a variety of sorts of flowers are trodden upon 
by the traveller on his way ! There is not one that I have 
seen in Galilee, or on the plains along the coast, that I do 
not find here again on Carmel, from the crocuses on the 
rocky grounds to the fennel plants and narcissuses of the 
Leontes ; from the intense red, white, and purple anemones 
of the plains to the ferns that hide themselves in the dark 
sepulchral caves. Yes ; Carmel, indeed, is still Carmel ; 
the fruitful, the graceful, the fragrant, the lovely mountain 
that he was in the days of old. But his glory, his attire, is 
hidden, is 4 withered,' according to God's word, so that the 
traveller along the common highways beholds it not." — 
Van de Velde's Syria and Palestine, vol. i. p. 347. 

It is at the eastern extremity of Carmel that we are to 
look for the scene of its grand and lasting associations. 
Its summit there commands the last view of the sea behind, 
and the first view of the great plain of Esdraelon in front. 
This spot is, to this day, called in Arabic language, the 
burning, or the sacrifice. The tradition which thus points 



TOPOGRAPHICAL ACCURACY. 337 

it out as the place of the sacrifice of Elijah, is corroborated 
by the fact that the localities adapt themselves to the event 
in every particular. " There, on the highest ridge of the 
mountain, may well have stood," says Mr. Stanley, " on its 
sacred ' high place,' the altar of the Lord which Jezebel had 
cast down. Close beneath, on a wide upland sweep, under 
the shade of ancient olives, and round a well of water, said 
to be perennial, and which may therefore have escaped the 
general drought, and have been able to furnish water for 
the trenches round the altar, must have been ranged, on 
one side the king and people, with the eight hundred and 
fifty prophets of Baal and Astarte, and on the other side 
the solitary and commanding figure of the Prophet of the 
Lord. Full before them opened the whole plain of Esdrae- 
lon, with Tabor and its kindred ranges in the distance ; on 
the rising ground, at the opening of its valley, the city of 
Jezreel, with Ahab's palace and Jezebel's temple distinctly 
visible; in the nearer foreground, immediately under the 
base of the mountain, was clearly seen the winding stream 
of the Kishon, working its way through the narrow pass of 
the hills into the bay of Acre. Such a scene, with such 
recollections of the past, with such sights of the present, 
was indeed a fitting theatre for a conflict more momentous 
than any which their ancestors had fought in the plain be- 
low. This is not the place to enlarge upon the intense so- 
lemnity and significance of that conflict which lasted on the 
mountain height from morning till noon, from noon till 
the time of the evening sacrifice. It ended at last in the 
level plain below, where Elijah brought the defeated proph- 
ets ' down ' the steep sides of the mountain c to the " tor- 
rent " of the Kishon, and slew them there.' 

" The closing scene still remains. From the slaughter 

by the side of the Kishon, the king ' went up ' at Elijah's 

bidding once again to the peaceful glades of Carmel, to join 

in the sacrificial feast. And Elijah, too, ascended to 'the 

15 



338 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

top of the mountain,' and there, with his face upon the earth, 
remained wrapt in prayer, whilst his servant mounted to the 
highest point of all, whence there is a wide view of the 
blue reach of the Mediterranean Sea, over the Western 
shoulder of the ridge. The sun was now gone down, but 
the cloudless sky was lit up with the long bright glow which 
succeeds an Eastern sunset. Seven times the servant climbed 
and looked, and seven times there was nothing ; the sky 
was still clear, the sea was still calm. At last, out of the 
far horizon there rose a little cloud — the first that had for 
days and months passed across the heavens — and it grew in 
the deepening shades of evening, and at last the whole sky 
was overcast, and the forests of Carmel shook in the wel- 
come sound of those mighty winds which in Eastern regions 
precede a coming tempest. Each from his separate height, 
the king and the prophet descended. And the king mount- 
ed his chariot at the foot of the mountain, lest the long- 
hoped-for rain should swell the torrent of the Kishon, as in 
the days when it swept away the host of Sisera ; and ' the 
hand of the Lord was upon Elijah,' and he girt his mantle 
round his loins, and, amidst the rushing storm with which 
the night closed in, ' ran before the chariot, 5 as the Bedouins 
of his native Gilead still run, with inexhaustible strength, to 
the entrance of Jezreel, distant, though still visible, from 
the scene of his triumph — the top of Carmel." — Stanley's 
Sinai and Palestine, pp. 354-356. 

ti Hj^ hy Pi Ej I j t 

" And Ahab rode, and went to Jezreel." — 1 Kings xviii. 45. 

The city to which Ahab rode from Carmel, attended by 
Elijah, was his favorite residence and the chief seat of his 
dynasty for three successive reigns. It has been identified 
with the modern Zer'in, which is a mere collection of hovels ; 
but though its splendor has vanished, enough remains in its 



TOPOGRAPHICAL ACCURACY. 339 

natural features to illustrate the most striking incidents in 
the scenes in which it appears in the Sacred History, of the 
overthrow of the house of Ahab. 

" Our grand object to-day was the position of the an- 
cient Jezreel. . . . Setting out from Jenin (at a quarter to 
five in the morning) we struck out upon the noble plain . . . 
towards the western extremity of the mountains of Gilboa. 
... At seven o'clock we reached Zer'in. ... As we ap- 
proached (it) there was only a very gentle rise of the sur- 
face, like a low swell ; and it was therefore unexpected to 
us, on reaching Zer'in, to find it standing upon the brow of 
a very steep rocky descent, of one hundred feet or more 
towards the northeast, where the land sinks off at once into 
a great fertile valley, running down along the northern wall 
of the mountains of Gilboa. This valley is itself a broad 
deep plain . . . enclosed between the ranges of Gilboa and 
little Hermon, (and) about an hour in breadth ; and below 
Zer'in continues down quite to the plain of the Jordan at 
Bethshan. We could see the acropolis of Bethshan lying 
much lower than Zer'in. 

"In the valley directly under Zer'in is a considerable 
fountain ; and twenty minutes further east another larger 
one, under the northern side of Gilboa, called 'Ain Jalud. 
Zer'in itself thus lies comparatively high, and commands a 
wide and noble view ; extending down the broad low valley 
on the east to Beisan, and to the mountains beyond the 
Jordan ; while towards the west it includes the whole great 
plain quite to the long ridge of Carmel. It is a most mag- 
nificent site for a city ; which, being itself such a conspicuous 
object in every part, would naturally give its name to the 
whole region. There could, therefore, be little question 
that we had before and around us the city, the plain, the 
valley, and the fountain of the ancient Jezreel. 1 

1 Valley of Jezreel, Josh. xvii. 16 ; Judges vi. 33; Hos. i. 5. Fountain, at 
Jezreel, 1 Sam. xxix. 1. 



340 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

" Jezreel is first meDtioned as belonging to the tribe of 
Issachar ; and it constituted afterwards a part of the king- 
dom of Ishbosheth. It became more notorious under Ahab 
and Jezebel, who, though residing at Samaria, had a palace 
here ; and it was to enlarge the grounds of this palace that 
the king desired the vineyard of Naboth, and gave occasion 
for the sad story of the latter. 

" In the retributions of Divine Providence, the same 
place became the scene of the massacre of Jezebel herself, 
her son Joram, and all the house of Ahab, by the hand of 
Jehu." — Robinson's Bib. Res. vol. iii, p. 168. 

It has already been noticed that the surrounding locali- 
ties illustrate the sacred narrative of these awful scenes. 
" We see how up the valley from the Jordan, Jehu's troop 
might be seen advancing, — how in Kaboth's ' field ' the 
two sovereigns met the relentless soldier, — how, whilst 
Joram died on the spot, Ahaziah drove down the west- 
ward plain, towards the mountain-pass by the village of 
En-gannim (Jenin), but was overtaken in the ascent, and 
died of his wounds at Megiddo ; how in the open place, 
which, as usual in Eastern towns, lay before the gates of 
Jezreel, the body of the queen was trampled under the 
hoofs of Jehu's horses ; how the dogs gathered round it, 
as even to this day, in the wretched village now seated on 
the ruins of the once splendid city of Jezreel, they prowl 
on the mounds without the walls for the offal and carrion 
thrown out to them to consume." — Stanley's Sinai and 
Palestine, p. 342. 

" The valley of Jezreel is celebrated in Scripture history 
for the remarkable victory of Gideon, and the last fatal 
overthrow of Saul. The Midianites, the Amalekites, and 
the children of the East had come over Jordan and pitched 
in the valley of Jezreel: and Gideon had gathered the 
Israelites of the northern tribes together, and encampec] 
at the well of Harod, probably on Mount Gilboa ; since 



TOPOGRAPHICAL ACCURACY. 341 

the host of Midian was beneath him in the valley. Here 
Gideon went down to the host, and heard the dream; and 
then, with his three hundred men, attacked and miracu- 
lously routed the whole host of Midian. Against Saul, the 
Philistines came up and pitched in Shunem, and Saul and 
all Israel pitched in Gilboa; afterward the Philistines 
are said to be at Aphek, and the Israelites at a fountain in 
Jezreel, doubtless the present 'Ain Jalud. Forsaken of 
God, and in the depth of his despair, Saul now crossed 
over the ridge of the little Hermon to Endor, to consult 
the sorceress. The battle took place next day ; c the men 
of Israel fled from before the Philistines, and fell down slain 
in Mount Gilboa ; ' and Saul and his three sons were found 
among the dead. The Philistines cut off his head, stripped 
the dead body, and then fastened it to the wall of Beth- 
shau. Thus, in the language of David's pathetic elegy, 
' The beauty of Israel was slain upon thy high places ! ' 
and hence the curse upon the scene of slaughter : ' Ye 
mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew, neither rain 
upon you, nor fields of offering.' 

" Leaving Jezreel at half-past seven, we descended to 
the fountain below the village, by a steep and rocky path. 
The water is copious and good. From here we proceeded 
down the valley twenty minutes to 'Ain Jalud, a very large 
fountain, flowing out from under a sort of cavern in the 
wall of conglomerate rock, which here forms the base of 
Gilboa. The water is excellent ; and, issuing from crevices 
in the rocks, it spreads out at once into a fine limpid pool, 
in which great numbers of fish were sporting. From the 
reservoir, a stream sufficient to turn a mill flows off down 
the valley. There is every reason to regard this (or the 
other fountain below the town, as Dr. Wilson thinks) as 
the ancient fountain of Jezreel, where Saul and Jonathan 
pitched before their last fatal battle; and where, too, in 
the days of the crusades, Saladin and the Christians sue- 



342 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

cessively encamped." — Robinson's Bib. Res. vol. iii, p. 
173. 

NAZAKETH. 

"And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up." — Luke iv. 16. 

This hallowed spot, in which the first thirty years of 
our Lord's earthly life were spent in tranquil seclusion, 
lies embosomed in a quiet valley among the hills of Galilee, 
about six miles north-west from Mount Tabor. " Fifteen 
gently rounded hills seem as if they had met to form an 
enclosure for this peaceful basin ; they rise round it like the 
edge of a shell to guard it from intrusion. It is a rich and 
beautiful field in the midst of these green hills — abounding 
in gay flowers. . . . The expression of the old topographer, 
Quaresmius, .was as happy as it was poetical : 4 Nazareth 
is a rose, and like a rose has the same rounded form, en- 
closed by mountains as the flower by its leaves.' 

" From the crest of the hills which thus screen it, espe- 
cially from that called Nebi-Said, or Ismail, on the western 
side, is one of the most striking views in Palestine : Tabor, 
with its rounded dome on the south-east ; Hermon's white 
top in the distant north ; Carmel and the Mediterranean 
Sea to the west ; a conjunction of those three famous moun- 
tains probably unique in the views of Palestine: and in 
the nearer prospect, the uplands in which Nazareth itself 
stands, its own circular basin around it. . . . On the south 
and south-east, lies the broad plain of Esdraelon, overhung 
by the broad pyramidal hill, which as the highest point of 
the Nazareth range, and thus the most conspicuous to 
travellers approaching from the plain, has received, though 
without any historical ground, the name of the 'Mount of 
Precipitation.' These are the natural features which for 
nearly thirty years met the almost daily view of Him 
who ' increased in wisdom and stature ' within this beauti- 
ful seclusion. It is the seclusion which constitutes its 



TOPOGRAPHICAL ACCURACY. 343 

peculiarity and its fitness for these scenes of the Gospel 
history. Unknown and unnamed in the Old Testament, 
Nazareth first appears as the retired abode of the humble 
carpenter. Its separation from the busy world may be the 
ground, as it certainly is an illustration, of the Evangelist's 
play on the word ' He shall be called a Nazarene.' Its wild 
character, high up in the Galilean hills, may account both 
for the roughness of its population, unable to appreciate 
their own Prophet, and for the evil reputation which it 
had acquired even in the neighboring villages, one of whose 
inhabitants, Nathanael of Cana, said : ' Can any good thing 
come out of Nazareth ? ' There, secured within the natu- 
ral barrier of the hills, was passed that youth, of which the 
most remarkable characteristic is its absolute obscurity; 
and thence came the name of Nazarene, used of old by the 
Jews, and used still by Mussulmans, as the appellation of 
that despised sect which has now embraced the civilized 
world." — Stanley's Sinai and Palestine, p. 366. 

" The sun was now fast declining ; and ... we has- 
tened on ; and at length, when it was nearly dark, having 
entered the streets of Nazareth, proceeded to the Latin 
Convent. . . . 

" Nazareth is situated on the side, and extends nearly 
to the foot of a hill, which, though not very high, is rather 
steep and overhanging. ... At the foot of the hill is a mod- 
est, simple plain, surrounded by low hills, reaching in length 
nearly a mile ; in breadth, near the city, a hundred and 
fifty yards ; but, further on, about four hundred yards. . . « 
Then follows a ravine, which gradually grows deeper and 
narrower, till, after walking about another mile, you find 
yourself in an immense chasm with steep rocks on either 
side, from whence you behold, as it were, beneath your feet 
and before you, the noble plain of Esdraelon. The situation 
of Nazareth is very romantic. The scenery around is of the 
kind in which one would imagine the Saviour of the world 



344 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

delighted to wander, and to withdraw himself when medi- 
tating on His great mission — deep and secluded dells, 
covered with a wild verdure — silent and solemn paths, 
where overhanging rocks shut out all intrusion. No one 
can walk round Nazareth without feeling thoughts like 
these enter his mind, while gazing often on many a sweet 
spot, traced perhaps by the Redeemer's footsteps, and 
embalmed by His prayers." — Jowett's Hesearches, pp. 
154-156, 165. 

..." I walked out alone to the top of the hill over 
Nazareth. . . . Here, quite unexpectedly, a glorious pros- 
pect opened on the view. The air was perfectly clear and 
serene, and I shall never forget the impression I received, 
as the scene burst suddenly upon me. There lay the mag- 
nificent plain of Esdraelon, ... on the left was seen the 
round top of Tabor over the intervening hills, with por- 
tions of the little Hermon and Gilboa, and the opposite 
mountains of Samaria. . . . Then came the long line of 
Carmel. ... In the west lay the Mediterranean, gleam- 
ing in the morning sun ; . . . below, on the north, was 
spread out another of the beautiful plains of northern 
Palestine; . . . beyond it, long ridges rise one higher 
than another, until the mountains of Safed overtop them 
all, on which at that place is seen, ' a city set upon an hill.' 
Further towards the right is a sea of hills and mountains, 
backed by the higher ones beyond the Lake of Tiberias, 
and in the north-east by the majestic Hermon with its icy 
crown. Carmel here presented itself to great advantage, 
extending far out into the sea, and dipping his feet into 
the waters. 

..." I remained for some hours upon this spot, lost in 
the contemplation of the wide prospect, and of the events 
connected with the scenes around. In the village below, 
the Saviour of the world had passed His childhood ; and 
although we have few particulars of His life during those 



TOPOGRAPHICAL ACCURACY. 345 

early years, yet there are certain features of nature which 
meet our eye now, just as they once met His. He must 
often have visited the fountain near which we had pitched 
our tent ; his feet must frequently have wandered over the 
adjacent hills ; and His eyes doubtless have gazed upon 
the splendid prospect froni this very spot. Here the Prince 
of Peace looked down upon the great plain, where the din 
of battles so often had rolled, and the garments of the war- 
rior been dyed in blood ; and he looked out, too, upon that 
sea, over which the swift ships were to bear the tidings of 
His salvation to nations and to continents then unknown. 
How has the moral aspect of things been changed ! Bat- 
tles and bloodshed have indeed not ceased to desolate this 
unhappy country, and gross darkness now covers the peo- 
ple ; but from this region a light went forth which has en- 
lightened the world and unveiled new climes ; and now the 
rays of that light begin to be reflected back from distant 
isles and continents, to illuminate anew the darkened land 
where it first sprung up." — Robinson's Bib. Bes. vol. iii, 
pp. 181-191. 

SEA OF GALILEE. 

" And it came to pass, that, as the people pressed upon him to hear the 
word of God, he stood by the lake of Gennesaret." — Luke v. 1. 

This hallowed sheet of water, associated with so much 
of the Saviour's life on earth, has several names in the 
Bible. In the Old Testament it is called the Sea of Chin- 
nereth } from a town of that name upon its shores. It is 
thus called in the Old Testament only. In the Apocryphal 
books it is called the Water of Genessar; in Josephus the 
Sea of Gennessar ; and in the New Testament, where it is 
very often mentioned, the Sea of Gennesareth, or, accord- 
ing to another reading, Gennesar, or the Sea of Galilee. 

" We reached the brow of the height above Tiberias, 
where a view of the whole sea opened at once upon us. It 



346 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

was a moment of no little interest ; for who can look with- 
out interest upon a lake on whose shores the Saviour lived 
so long, and where He performed so many of his mighty 
works ? Yet to me, I must confess, so long as we contin- 
ued around the lake, the attraction lay more in those asso- 
ciations than in the scenery itself. The lake presented 
indeed a beautiful sheet of limpid water, in a deep de- 
pressed basin, from which the shores rise, in general, 
steeply and continuously all around, except where a ravine, 
or sometimes a deep wady, occasionally interrupts them. 
The hills are rounded and tame, with little of the pic- 
turesque in their form ; they are decked by no shrubs nor 
forests. . . . One interesting object greeted our eyes — a 
little boat, with a white sail, gliding over the waters ; the 
only one, as we afterwards found, upon all the lake. . . . 

" As we sat at evening in the door of our tent, looking 
out over the placid surface of the lake, its aspect was too 
inviting not to allure us to take a bath in its limpid waters. 
The clear and gravelly bottom shelves down in this part 
very gradually, and is strewed with many pebbles. In or 
after the rainy season, when the torrents from the neighs 
bouring hills and the more northern mountains stream into 
the lake, the water rises to a higher level, and overflows 
the courtyards of the houses along its shores in Tiberias. 
The lake furnished the only supply of water for the inhab- 
itants ; it is sparkling, and pleasant to the taste ; or at least 
it was so to us, after drinking so long of water carried in 
our leathern bottles. . . . 

" The lake is full of fish of various kinds ; we had no 
difficulty in procuring an abundant supply for our evening 
and morning meal ; and found them delicate and well fla- 
vored." — Robinson's Bib. Res. vol. iii, pp. 252-253. 

" My experience in this region enables me to sympathize 
with the disciples in their long night's contest with the 
wind. I spent a night in the Wady Shukaiyif, some three 



TOPOGRAPHICAL ACCURACY. 347 

miles up it. The sun had scarcely set when the wind be- 
gan to rush down toward the lake, and it continued all 
night long with constantly increasing violence, so that 
when we reached the shore next morning, the face of the 
lake was like a huge boiling caldron. The wind howled 
down every wady from the north-east and east, with such 
fury that no efforts of rowers could have brought a boat 
to shore at any point along that coast. In a wind like that, 
the disciples must have been driven quite across to Genne- 
saret, as we know they were To understand the causes 
of these sudden and violent tempests, we must remember 
that the lake lies low — six hundred feet lower than the 
ocean ; that the vast and naked plateaus of the Jordan 
rise to a great height, spreading backward to the wilds of 
the Hauran, and upward to snowy Hermon ; that the water- 
courses have cut out profound ravines and wild gorges, 
converging to the head of this lake, and that these act like 
gigantic funnels to draw down the cold winds from the 
mountains. On the occasion referred to we subsequently 
pitched our tents at the shore, and remained for three days 
and nights exposed to this tremendous wind. We had to 
double-pin all the tent-ropes, and frequently were obliged 
to hang with our whole weights upon them, to keep the 
quivering tabernacle from being carried up bodily into the 
air. No wonder the disciples toiled and rowed all that 
night ; and how natural their amazement and terror at the 
sight of Jesus walking on the waves ! The faith of Peter 
in desiring and daring to set foot on such a sea is most 
striking and impressive ; more so, indeed, than its failure 
after he made the attempt. The whole lake, as we had it, 
was lashed into fury : the waves repeatedly rolled up to our 
tent door, tumbling over the ropes with such violence as to 
carry away the tent-pins. And, moreover, those winds are 
not only violent, but they come down suddenly, and often 
when the sky is perfectly clear. I once went in to swim 



348- TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

near the hot baths, and, before I was aware, a wind came 
rushing over the cliffs with such force that it was with 
great difficulty I could regain the shore. Some such sud- 
den wind it was, I suppose, that filled the ship with waves, 
4 so that it was now full,' while Jesus was asleep on a pillow 
in the hinder part of the ship ; nor is it strange that the 
disciples aroused Him with the cry of ' Master ! Master ! 
carest thou not that we perish? 5 'But he arose and re- 
buked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still ; and 
the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. And the 
disciples feared exceedingly, and said one to another, What 
manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey 
him ?' " — Dk. Thomson's Land and the Book, vol. ii, p. 32. 

" Yet one scene was perhaps more present with us than 
any other through that Sunday, — and especially at each of 
the three sunrises we saw over the lake, — the scene which 
almost more vividly and familiarly than any other brings 
before us our risen Saviour, the first fruits in whose likeness 
all that sleep in Him shall be raised. 

" It was the time when Jesus showed himself again to 
the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias, that last supplementary 
chapter of St. John's Gospel, which seems to lead us beyond 
the grave to the shores of life on ' the other side,' and yet 
whose chief delight it is that its scene was here on this actual, 
familiar, untransformed earth, on one of these very sandy 
or shingly beaches. We could not but recall continually 
the solitary figure seen dimly from the boat after the night 
of toil and disappointment in the grey of the morning ; the 
voice recognized at last by its power in the repetition of the 
old miracle ; old, yet new in the significant variety of the 
safe landing of the unbroken net with all its contents at the 
feet of Jesus ; the simple meal which the Master provided 
from his stores, not from theirs ; and afterwards, more than 
all, the familiar converse as the little band, 'when they 
had dined,' walked along this shore. 



TOPOGRAPHICAL ACCURACY. 349 

w Yes, along this shore ; with the quiet music of these 
waters rippling against the beach, and the golden outlines 
of the opposite hills reflected on the lake in the early morn- 
ing, that little band walked on, conversing as they went ; 
and before them the risen Lord, the One who had died 
was alive again, and would die no more, speaking, as 
he walked, to Peter in few and quiet words which went 
to the depths of the heart. The past three-fold denial, 
recalled by the three-fold question, but only recalled to 
stamp a deeper consecration on the service of the future. 
This was the scene which, more than any other, seemed 
before us. 

" The fire of charcoal smouldering on this beach to 
welcome the weary fishermen ; the fishes laid thereon, and 
the flat unleavened cakes (such as were often prepared for 
us) baked on the ashes; the Lord himself taking the bread 
and fish and giving them to the disciples; and after the 
simple meal the quiet conversation as they walked along 
the shore — and then the gleams of allegoric meaning which 
flash through all these homely details, lifting the heart to. 
the heavenly shore ; and the net which, ' when it is full,' 
the angels shall come forth and lay at the feet of Jesus, no 
more treading the stormy sea, or tossed in the frail boat, 
but standing in majesty on the eternal shore. And after- 
wards the ■ feast,' — not a morning meal then, but a ' sup- 
per,' an evening feast when the long day of toil is over ; 
and when the ' Lovest thou me ? ' shall be exchanged for 
the ' In that thou didst it unto me ; ' and the ' Feed my 
sheep' for 'Weil done, good and faithful servant, thou 
hast been faithful in a few things, I will make thee ruler 
over many things ; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.' 

" Thus if through the night the Sea of Galilee seems to 
echo with the heart-calming assurance, ( It is I, be not 
afraid,' its shores at morning seem no less to resound with 
the heart-stirring question, ' Lovest thou me?'" 



350 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

SCENERY OF THE PARABLES. 

" And he sat down and taught the people out of the ship." — Luke v. 3. 

" The greater part of the parables delivered in Galilee, 
are grouped in the discourse from the fishing vessel off the 
beach of the plain of Gennesareth. Is there anything on 
the spot to suggest the images thus conveyed ? So (if I 
may speak for a moment of myself) I asked, as I rode 
along the track under the hill side, by which the plain of 
Gennesareth is approached, so I asked at the moment, see- 
ing nothing but the steep sides of the hill alternately of 
rock and grass. And when I thought of the parable of the 
sower, I answered, that here at least was nothing on which 
the Divine Teaching could fasten. It must have been the 
distant corn-fields of Samaria or Esdraelon on which His 
mind was dwelling. The thought had hardly occurred to 
me, when a slight recess in the hill side, close upon the 
plain, disclosed at once, in detail, and with a conjunction 
which I remember nowhere else in Palestine, every feature 
of the great Parable. There was the undulating corn-field 
descending to the water's edge. There was the trodden 
pathway running through the midst of it, with no fence or 
hedge to prevent the seed from falling here and there on 
either side of it, or upon it ; itself hard with the constant 
tramp of horse and mule, and human feet. There, near at 
hand, were all kinds of aquatic fowl by the lake side, im- 
mediately recalling the ' birds of the air ' which ■ came and 
devoured the seed by the way side,' or which took refuge 
in the spreading branches of the mustard tree. There was 
the 'good' rich soil, which distinguishes the whole of that 
plain and its neighborhood from the bare hills elsewhere 
descending into the lake, and which, where there is no in- 
terruption, produces one vast mass of corn. There was the 
rocky ground of the hill side protruding here and there 



TOPOGRAPHICAL ACCURACY. 351 

through the corn-fields, as elsewhere through the grassy- 
slopes. There were the large bushes of thorn — the ' Nabk,' 
that kind of which tradition says that the Crown of Thorns 
was woven, — springing up, like the fruit trees of the more 
inland parts, in the very midst of the waving wheat. 

" This is the most detailed illustration of the Galilean 
parables. But the image of the corn-fields generally must 
have been always present to the eye of the multitude on 
shore, of the Master and disciples in the boat — as con- 
stantly as the vineyards at Jerusalem. ' The earth bring- 
eth forth fruit of herself,' — 'the blade, the ear, the full 
corn in the ear,' — ' the reapers coming with their sickles 
for the harvest,' — the tall green stalks still called Zuwan 
by the Arabs (in the Greek N". T. c zizania ' and in our ver- 
sion rendered ' tares ') at first sight hardly distinguishable 
from the wheat, could never be out of place in the plain of 
Gennesareth. It is mpossible, moreover, to see even the 
relics of the great fisheries, which once made the fame of 
Gennesareth, the two or three solitary fishermen casting 
their nets into the lake from its rocky banks, without re- 
calling the image which here alone, in inland Palestine, 
could have a meaning ; of the net which was ' cast into the 
sea and gathered of every kind,' from all the various tribes 
which still people these lonely waters." — Stanley. 

LEBANON. 

" The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee." — Is a. lx. 13. 

" The first mention of Lebanon is in the prayer of Mo- 
ses, when he besought the Lord that he might see ' that 
goodly mountain and Lebanon.' It was then inhabited by 
the Hivites. There is frequent reference to the fountains, 
wells, and streams of Lebanon, as well as to its vines, flow- 
ers, roots, fir trees, box trees, and cedars; and in one de- 
scription of the latter day glory, it is said, that ' the fruit 



352 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

thereof shall shake like Lebanon.' The allusions of the 
prophets appear very striking to those acquainted with the 
circumstances of the place. We learn from Hosea, that 
Israel shall one day be ' as the vine of Lebanon ; ' and its 
wine is still the most esteemed -of any in the Levant. 
What could better display the folly of the man who had 
forsaken his God, than the reference of Jeremiah to the* 
cold flowing waters from the ices of Lebanon— the bare 
mention of which must have brought the most delightful 
associations to the inhabitants of the parched plain ? The 
Psalmist declares, that ' the voice of the Lord breaketh the 
cedars ; yea, the Lord breaketh the cedars of Lebanon ; » 
and a more sublime spectacle can scarcely be conceived 
than the thunder rolling among these enormous masses, 
and the lightning playing among the lofty cedars, wither- 
ing their foliage, crashing the branches that had stood the 
storms of centuries, and with the utmost ease hurling the 
roots and trunks into the distant vale. But by Isaiah the 
mountain is compared to one vast altar, and its countless 
trees are the pile of wood, and the cattle upon its thousand 
hills the sacrifice ; yet, if a volcanic eruption were to burst 
forth from one of its summits, and in torrents of liquid fire 
to enkindle the whole at once, even this mighty offering 
would be insufficient to expiate one single crime : and the 
sinner is told that ' Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor 
the beasts thereof for a burnt- offering.' The trees of Leb- 
anon are now comparatively few, and with them are gone 
the eagles and wild beasts to which they afforded shelter ; 
and it is of its former state, and not of its present degrada- 
tion, that we are to think, in reading the glowing descrip- 
tions of the prophets." — Haedy's Notices of the Holy 
Land, pp. 271-273. 

" His countenance is as Lebanon." 
" Such is the figure used by Solomon to indicate the 



TOPOGKAPHICAL ACCURACY. 353 

dignity, beauty, and majesty of the great Head of the 
Church. They who have gazed upon Lebanon from the 
heights about Beyrout must have felt how noble an image it 
is. Lebanon is a little world in itself. It is still abundantly 
populated, notwithstanding the ravages of war; and its 
fertility is very great, by means of the terraced manner 
of cultivation, which has so generally prevailed in the 
East. From Beyrout the eye traces numberless villages, 
scattered about even on the higher ridges, amidst forests 
of pine and majestic oaks. The loftiest peak of Lebanon 
is called Sannin, and is computed at 10,000 feet above the 
sea level. There is an indescribable air of grandeur per- 
vading this grand mass of mountain. But what must Leba- 
non have been, when the prophet Isaiah referred to it as 
an image to illustrate his announcement of gospel blessing 
and gospel glory — i The glory of Lebanon shall be given 
unto it ' ? " — Mission to the Jews, p. 240. 

... "I have travelled in no part of the world where I 
have seen such a variety of glorious mountain scenes with- 
in so narrow a compass. Not the luxurious Java, not the 
richly wooded Borneo, not the majestic Sumatra or Celebes, 
not the paradise-like Ceylon, far less the grand but naked 
mountains of South Africa, or the low impenetrable woods 
of the West Indies, are to be compared to the southern 
projecting mountains of Lebanon. In yonder lands all is 
green or all is bare. An Indian landscape has something 
monotonous in its superabundance of wood and jungle, that 
one wishes in vain to see intermingled with rocky cliffs or 
with towns or villages. In the bare table lands of the Cape 
Colony, the eye discovers nothing but rocky cliffs. ... It 
is not so, however, with the southern ranges of Lebanon. 
Here there are woods and mountains, streams and villages, 
bold rocks and green cultivated fields, land and sea views. 
Here, in one word, you find all that the eye could desire 
to behold on this earth. . . . The whole of northern Canaan 



354 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

lies at our feet. Is not this Sidon ? Are not those Sarepta 
and Tyre, and Ras-el-Abial ? I see also the Castle of Shukif 
and the gorge of the Leontes, and the hills of Safed, and, 
in the distance, the basin of the Sea of Tiberias, with the 
hills of Bara, far, far away ; and all these hundreds of vil- 
lages between the spot we are at and the sea coast. . . . 
Half a day would not suffice for taking the angles of such 
an ocean of villages, towns, castles, rivers, hills and capes." — 
Van de Velde, vol. ii, p. 488. 

..." Wherever one may wander over the sunny 
hills and valleys into which the romantic region of * the 
Lebanon ' is cloven, will he find himself in presence of a 
living picture of ancient times and ever fresh associations. 
He will find the venerable mountain incrusted with a rich 
and sacred symbolism. The waving of its golden harvests 
will speak to him of ' an handful of corn on the top of the 
mountains, the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon.' Its 
vineyards purpling in the clear heat of the summer, the 
mellow fruitage of its load of orchards, the brilliant colors 
of its wayside flowers, the sweetness of its odorous thickets 
and beds of thyme, the balsamic fragrance of its cedars, 
will give more vivid force to holy words which have rung 
from childhood through the memory : c I will be as the 
dew unto Israel : he shall grow as the lily, and cast forth 
his roots as Lebanon. His branches shall spread, and his 
beauty shall be as the olive tree, and his smell as Lebanon. 
They that dwell under his shadow shall return : they shall 
revive as the corn and grow as the vine ; the scent thereof 
shall be as the wine of Lebanon.' Stability, fragrance, 
fruitfiilness, types of the highest graces that beautify and 
exalt the life of man, dwell in pure and endless companion- 
ship beneath the cedars of Lebanon." 



TOPOGKAPHICAL ACCUEACY. 355 

MOUNT HEEMON. 

"As the dew of Hermon." — Psalm cxxxiii. 3. 

This celebrated mountain, though the subject of frequent 
allusion, is not associated with any historical event in the 
Old Testament. It was however the most probable scene 
of one of the most interesting events in the life of our Lord 
related in the New. " In the turning point of his history, 
when ' from that time many of his disciples went back and 
walked no more with him,' when even the twelve seemed 
likely * to go away ; ' and He could no more walk in Juda?a 
'because the Jews sought to kill Him;' then He left His 
familiar haunts on the Sea of Galilee, to return to them, 
as far as we know, only once more. He crossed to the 
north-eastern corner of the lake, and passed, as it would 
seem, up the rich plain along its eastern side, and came 
into 'the parts,' into 'the villages' of Csesarea Philippi. 
It is possible that He never reached the city itself; but it 
must at least have been in its neighborhood that the con- 
fession of Peter was made ; the rock on which the Temple 
of Augustus stood, and from which the streams of the Jor- 
dan issue, may possibly have suggested the words which 
now run round the dome of St. Peter's. And here one 
cannot but ask what was the ' high mountain ' on which 
six days from that time, whilst still in this region, ' He 
was transfigured ' before His three disciples ? It is impos- 
sible to look up from the plain to the towering peaks of 
Hermon, almost the only mountain which deserves the 
name in Palestine, and one of whose ancient titles was 
derived from this circumstance, and not be struck with its 
appropriateness to the scene. That magnificent height — 
mingling with all the views of Northern Palestine from 
Shechem upwards — though often alluded to as the northern 
barrier of the Holy Land, is connected with no historical 



356 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

event in the Old or New Testament. Yet this fact of its 
rising high above all the other hills of Palestine, and of its 
setting the last limit to the wanderings of Him who was 
sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, falls in 
with the supposition which the words inevitably force upon 
us. High up on the southern slopes there must be many 
a point where the disciples could be taken c apart by them- 
selves.' At any rate, the remote heights above the sources 
of the Jordan witnessed the moment, when His work in 
His own peculiar sphere being ended, He set his face for 
the last time ' to go up to Jerusalem.' " — Stanley's Sinai 
and Palestine, pp. 391-392. 

The same view is also adopted and ably supported by 
Dr. Buchanan in his "Clerical Furlough." .... "Upon 
the whole, in so far as its known history is concerned, the 
one event which sheds a glory around it, is the visit and 
the transfiguration of our Lord. As regards the natural 
beauties of the scene, they can hardly be exaggerated. 
From the edge of the grove where our tents were pitched 
the view all around was of the noblest kind. Immediately 
behind us, on the east, and looking right down upon us 
from a height of 1,000 feet, were the massive ruins of the 
singularly picturesque and majestic fortress of Subeibeh. 
Thousands and thousands of feet above it, and running 
along the whole north side of our position, towered up the 
mighty Hermon, his vast sides cleft by tremendous chasms 
and shaggy with dark woods, his swelling breast rising 
black and bare over these primeval forests; and higher 
still his broad and gigantic shoulders and hoary head white 
with eternal snow ! Who could look at him and fail to 
acknowledge his right to be called the Jebel-es-Sheikh — the 
mountain monarch of the land ? " 

The view from the summit of Hermon is thus finely 
given by Mr. Porter : " I shall not soon forget the feelings 
that filled my breast as I gazed on the magnificent pan- 



TOPOGRAPHICAL ACCURACY. 357 

or am. a spread out before me. I could scarce realize the 
thought that my feet stood on that sacred mountain of 
which inspired penmen had written; and that the Land 
of Israel, God's gift to Abraham's seed, was before me. 
And yet it was so ! Looking westward, that expanse of 
water, now gleaming like burnished gold beneath the rays 
of the sinking sun, is the ' Great Sea,' the border of the 
'Promised Land.' On that low promontory jutting out 
behind those mountains stands Tyre, the ancient queen of 
the sea; and those mountains are called Lebanon. That 
blue ridge far away to the south is Carmel, and the broad 
plain of Esdraelon stretches along its base, with Jezreel 
and Shunem, Endor and Tabor, Nain and Nazareth on its 
borders. Here on the south, deeply depressed, are the 
still waters of the Sea of Galilee, and the narrow valley 
running away beyond, marks the course of the Jordan. 
The picturesque hills on the left bank of the Jordan are 
the hills of Gilead ; and the elevated plateau on this side 
of them, extending far eastward, is-the 'Land of Bashan.' 
On the north are the lofty parallel ridges of Libanus and 
Antilibanus, rising peak over peak far as the eye can see, 
and enclosing between them the rich valley of Coele-Syria. 
At the eastern base of Antilibanus is a broad plain covered 
with verdure; and the eye can just detect a bright speck 
in the centre of it — that is Damascus, the oldest city in the 
world. 

" What a multitude of wondrous events does memory 
crowd together in this narrow space ! Through these 
mountains and plains roamed the patriarchs with their 
flocks and herds. This country was witness to the prowess 
of Samson, the valour of David, and the wisdom of Solo- 
mon. Here God's ancient people were cheered by revela- 
tions of eternal truth from on high ; and they were awed 
and solemnized by wondrous manifestations of Divine power 
and love. The feet of the Son of God and Saviour of the 



358 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

World trod these cities and villages, while their inhabitants 
beheld His miracles, His sufferings, and the heavenly purity 
of His life. Here too was consummated the glorious work 
of man's redemption, when Jesus died and rose again, hav- 
ing vanquished death and Satan, and brought life and im- 
mortality to light. Of incidents venerable for their high 
antiquity, of events celebrated for their display of valour 
and patriotism, and of acts hallowed by the loftiest mani- 
festations of Divine power and love, this land was the 
scene." — Five Years in Damascus, vol. I. .pp.291, 292. 

The details above given are but a selected portion of 
the testimony of the Land to the Book gathered from the 
observations of different travellers. Many volumes would 
be required, fully to present the evidence arising from this 
source. The argument which it sustains has been thus 
forcibly stated by the learned Professor Stuart : " How 
obviously every thing of this kind serves to give confirma- 
tion to the authority and credibility of the sacred record. 
Do sceptics undertake to scoff at the Bible, and aver that 
it is the work of impostors who lived in later ages ? Be- 
sides asking them what object impostors could have in 
forging a book of such high and lofty principles, we may 
ask — and ask with an assurance that need not fear the dan- 
ger of being put to the blush — whether impostors of later 
ages could possibly have so managed as to preserve all 
the localities in complete order which the Scriptures pre- 
sent ? Rare impostors they must indeed have been — men 
possessed of more knowledge of antiquity than we can well 
imagine could ever be possessed by such as would conde- 
scend to an imposition of such a character. In fact, the 
thing appears to be morally impossible, if one considers it 
in the light of antiquity, when so little knowledge of a 
geographical kind was in existence, and when mistakes re- 
specting countries and places with which one wa3 not per- 



TOPOGRAPHICAL ACCURACY. 359 

sonally familiar were almost, if not altogether, unavoid- 
able. 

" How, happens it now that the authors of the Old Tes- 
tament Scriptures should have possessed such a wonderful 
tact in geography, as it would seem they did, unless they 
lived at the time aDd in the countries of which they have 
spoken ? This happens not elsewhere. It is but yesterday 
since one of the first geological writers in Great Britain 
published to the world that our Mississippi and Missouri 
rivers belong to the tropics. Respectable writers, even in 
Germany, the land of classical attainments, have sometimes 
placed Ccele-Syria on the east of the Antilibanus ridge, or 
even seemed to transfer Damascus over the mountains, and 
place it between the two Lebanon ridges in the valley. 
No such mistakes occur in the sacred writers. They write 
as men who were familiar with the geography of places 
named ; they mention places with the utmost familiarity ; 
and after a lapse of almost three thousand years, every 
successive traveller who visits Bible lands, does something 
to confirm the accuracy of the Hebrew prophets. Towns 
bearing the same name, or the ruins of towns, are located 
in the same relative position in which they said they were ; 
and the ruins of once splendid cities, broken columns, di- 
lapidated walls, trodden-down vineyards, half-demolished 
temples and fragments broken and consumed by time, pro- 
claim to the world that those cities are what they said they 
would be, and that they were under the inspiration of 
God." 



CHAPTER XI. 

ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES — OLD TESTAMENT. 

The constant agreement which has been shown to ex- 
ist between the recorded history and the natural geography 
of both the Old and New Testament, proves undeniably, 
the accuracy of the sacred writers. But does it also estab^ 
hsh the historic reality of the events which they narrate ? 
That it does so when candidly viewed, seems also unde^ 
niable. To find the Scripture notices, not only of distant 
regions, but of valleys, fountains, mountains, rivers, so ex- 
actly confirmed in the minutest details, is irreconcileable 
with any other supposition than that the men and the oc- 
currences of those distant times which the Bible brings 
before us, were not less true and living than the human 
realities which are now around us. 

Against this point, as has been already noticed, the spe- 
cial and most strenuous efforts of modern infidelity have 
been directed. It has laboured to show that the events of 
the Bible history are so enveloped in the mists and clouds 
of the remote ages in which they transpired, that it is im- 
possible to separate them from the unsubstantial fancies of 
myth and legend. The additional and overwhelming evi- 
dence stored up in memorials of dead empires, that lay for- 
gotten and unknown until needed for the vindication of 
God's word, will furnish the materials for the present 
chapter. 

It will be instructive, however, first to consider the rise 



ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES. 



of the peculiar school of scepticism which rendered the 
production of that evidence timely and opportune. 

" The close of the last and the beginning of the present 
century," says Mr. Rawlinson, 1 "saw the rise of a new sci- 
ence, — the science of historical criticism, identified in Ger- 
many with the name of Niebuhr, and adopted and applied 
by such English scholars as Thirlwall, Grote, Arnold, and 
others. Under the application of its new and shifting 
principles of historical investigation, many of the hitherto 
recognized verities of ancient history, Greek, Roman, and 
Egyptian, fell back into the region of the legendary and 
the fabulous. The domain of real history was circum- 
scribed ; fucts once received melted down into fables, he- 
roes receded into gods and demi-gods, and their feats and 
triumphs were proved to be but the fancies of poets or the 
dreams of national vanity. An unreasoning and uncritical 
faith had received with equal satisfaction the narratives of 
the campaigns of Caesar and of the doings of Romulus, the 
account of the marches of Alexander and of the conquests 
of Semiramis, the story of the conspiracy of Cataline and 
the tale of the Trojan settlements at Latium. The light 
had not been sufficiently bounded off from the darkness, 
the dreamy cloud-land of legend and fable from the clear, 
perfect historic day. In dividing between these and clear- 
ing the historic field of its long legendary occupants, al- 
though in some instances the pruning knife of the critic 
may have overdone its work, it cannot be denied that an 
important service has been rendered to historical science, 
and reliable principles for the conduct of historical inquiry 
have been fixed and ascertained. 

" The successful demolition of errors in this part of the 
historic field, suggested the inquiry — c Might not this new 
science be made available for a fresh assault upon historical 
Christianity ? > If it could be wielded in that direction, 

1 Bampton Lectures. 
16 



362 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

the attack would fall in with the humour of the times, with 
the movement in the world of philosophy. It would cover 
itself with the plausible shield of historical inquiry. Criti- 
cism had reduced the dimensions of Grecian and Roman 
history ; it had disintegrated the true from the false, the 
really historical from the fabulous. Might it not be ap- 
plied with equal success to the Jewish and Christian histo- 
ries ? Might they not be shown to have their fabulous ex- 
crescences to be cut off by the modern critical priming- 
knife, their large account of facts to be thrown back into 
the dim twilight region of myths and legends ? There 
was no want of will to make the attempt. The great mas- 
ter-mind to whom the new science owed, if not its exist- 
ence, its advancement to the place it held, had indeed 
distinctly accepted the mass of the Scripture history as 
authentic, and was a sincere and earnest believer. But 
there were minds of a different order among his country- 
men, neither guided by his caution nor restrained by his 
reverence, and whose faith had already given way in all 
that was essential in Christianity. Having cast away the 
kernel, their next struggle was to dispose of the shell, and 
the new science was pressed into their service to accom- 
plish the work of demolition." The result has been the 
rise of the German mythical school of infidelity, which with 
an erudition and acumen never surpassed, have brought all 
the resources of learning against the historical statements 
of Holy Writ. By these writers, the miracles in the sacred 
narrative have been compared with the prodigies and di- 
vine appearances related by Herodotus and Livy. Because 
the names of kings were frequently apposite to their char- 
acter or the events of their career, they have argued that 
the monarchs supposed to have borne them, must be re- 
garded as fictitious personages like Theseus and Numa. 
Portions of the sacred history were early declared to pre- 
sent every appearance of being simply myths ; and by de- 



ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES. 363 

grecs it was sought to give the whole history from first to 
last a legendary and unreal character. Did any of the 
particular narratives in the sacred books seem to the ra- 
tionalistic mind objectionable or improbable, it was deemed 
a sufficient account of any such narrative to say that its 
main source was oral tradition — that it first took a written 
shape many hundreds of years after the supposed date of 
the circumstances narrated, the authors being poets rather 
than historians, and bent rather on glorifying their native 
country than on giving a true relation of facts — and that in 
places they had not even confined themselves to the exag- 
geration, but had allowed imagination to step in and fill up 
the blanks in their annals. This school of writers have not 
hesitated to claim the possession of " a verifying faculty," 
— an infallible tact, which enables them to decide at once as 
to what is, and what is not, historical and literal truth. 
Armed with this spear of Ithuriel, De Wette was empow- 
ered to relegate a great part of the Old Testament Histo- 
ries into the region of the mythical ; and Schleiermacher 
did not hesitate to characterize those narratives out of the 
life of our Lord, which the Evangelists have preserved re- 
specting his childhood and early youth, as " no more than 
the poetical expression of the truth, that the beginning 
and end of his marvellous life were not to be measured by 
the laws of common experience." At length the system 
may be said to have culminated in the remarkable work 
entitled " The Life of Christ," by Strauss, in which the en- 
tire ISTew Testament is turned into a myth and Christ him- 
self becomes a mere name. 

From Germany this school of infidelity has spread to 
England and America, exerting in both countries a widely 
pernicious influence among the cultivated classes of society. 
In circles which would turn with disgust from the vulgar 
productions of the Paine school, works of a far more dan- 
gerous character are now freely circulated, — works whose 



364 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

avowed object it is to " extirpate all faith in the supernatu- 
ral ; to account for the origin of every form of religion, 
not excepting Christianity itself, on purely natural prin- 
ciples ; to undermine all creeds, and overthrow every exist- 
ing form of worship ; and to substitute for them either the 
simplest and most practical code of utilitarian morals, or 
the vague and mystic generalities of Pantheism." Among 
the more prominent of these may be mentioned Mackay's 
"Progress of the Intellect," a work bearing the marks of 
erudition, more ingenuity and labour, and very slender judg- 
ment. The author attempts to dispose of the supernatural 
claims of Christianity by applying the theory of myths 
alike to the systems of Polytheism and the Scriptures of 
Truth ; all mythology being in his estimation, " but the 
exaggerated reflection of our own intellectual habits." The 
Polytheism of the Greeks and the Christianity of the New 
Testament, were equally the products or creations of the 
human mind ; and each of the two may be satisfactorily 
accounted for by the same natural law or tendency which 
leads mankind every where and in all circumstances to 
give form and body to their ideal conceptions, to personify 
abstractions, and to endow these imaginary beings with 
attributes akin to their own. In attempting to develop 
this fundamental idea, he not only compares the mythology 
of the Greeks with the mythology of the Hebrews, as con- 
tained in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, but he places 
both on precisely the same level, and ascribes to them a 
common origin. As a specimen of what the beautiful nar- 
ratives of Scripture become by the application of this theory, 
his interpretation of the history of Joseph maybe subjoined. 
This, he suggests, " is simply the myth of the Arabian 
phoenix in another form, because the moon and the stars 
bowed down to him in the dream, and he was carried away 
amidst bales of myrrh, as that bird was said to make its 
funeral pyre of spices, and after marrying a daughter of 



AKCHxEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES. 365 

the priest of the sun, representative of the sun himself, a 
command was given respecting his bones, like those of the 
Nature God, symbolized by Osiris, Orestes and Pelops ! " 
1 Ex uno disce omnes.' Subjected to this crucible, the whole 
of those simple and touching histories which delight the 
opening mind of childhood and charm to the last the dull 
ear of old age, are transmuted into a mere mass of legends, 
on a par with the Arabian Nights or the adventures of the 
Odyssey. They are but phantasmata — as unreal as the 
vision that mocked the efforts of the Trojan hero: — 

"Ter frustra cornprensa mamis effugit imago, 
Par levibus ventis volucrique simillima somiio." 

A dim haze settles down upon the Scripture landscape, 
and all its scenes and events — the actors and the stage — 
become " such stuff as dreams are made of," and, like Fairy- 
land with King Arthur and his knights, are floated off to 

some 

" island valley of Avilion 

Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, 
Nor ever wind blows loudly." 

Were it possible for this attempt to " rationalize " the 
Bible and transform its histories into " myths " to be suc- 
cessful, then, indeed, would the Gospel refuge for sinners 
be dismantled and levelled to the dust. For, as we have 
already seen, Christianity must stand or fall with the facts 
with which it is intertwined. But the waves of profane 
speculation and the winds of sentimental fancies burst in 
vain against this building of God. It is founded on the 
rock of eternal truth, and cannot be overthrown. This 
phase of infidelity has been made in the wisdom of Provi- 
dence, to serve what seems its natural end, to lead to a 
more accurate study of Scripture than was ever before 
engaged in ; and to broaden and deepen the foundations 
of all the defences of the faith. The subtile and insidious 



366 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

methods of undermining the vital truths and facts of reve- 
lation, devised by Strauss, Bruno Bauer and other rational- 
istic leaders, roused such men as Tholuek, Hengstenberg, 
Neander, Olshausen and Stier to rally to the standard of 
the truth. These great scholars, and not they alone, have 
met the mythical school of infidels upon their own ground, 
and with their own weapons have fully discomfited them. 
By the application of the principles of a legitimate and just 
criticism, the weakness and fallacy of their objections have 
been fully demonstrated, the historic verity of the Scrip- 
tures vindicated, and not a jot or tittle has fallen to the 
ground. 

The internal evidence on this point is alone sufficient to 
carry conviction to every unprejudiced mind. " The Scrip- 
tures shine bright with the amiable simplicity of truth. 
They set forth things just as they happened, with the mi- 
nute circumstances of time, place, situation, gesture, habits, 
&c, in such a natural manner that we seem to be actually 
present." ' " When we compare the early Scriptures with 
the Grecian and Eastern fables, we feel just the same con- 
trast as between a crowd of meteors, appearing and disap- 
pearing suddenly in all directions, and the calm, steady, 
onward progress of the stars, that move silently and irre- 
sistibly in their course through the dark blue heavens. 
There is no hurry and yet there is no pause, in the view 
of the Divine Providence, and of the moral government of 
the world, which these simple histories set before us. If 
wonders are recorded, there is no pausing to dwell upon 
them, as if strange works of power were strange and sur- 
prising even to the Divine Historian. There is no lingering 
in the far distant past, where a human fancy would have 
loved to disport itself, amidst the rivers of Paradise, and 
gorgeous visions of Hesperian gardens, homes of beauty, 
and islands of the blest. The giants, ' the mighty men of 

* Jonathan Edwards' Works, vol. viii, p. 197. 



ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES. 367 

old, men of renown,' have their transitory fame just indi- 
cated in one sentence, and pass at once out of view. The 
peopling of the old world by the sons of Noah, and the 
dispersion from the tower of Babel, are briefly recorded ; 
but no details of the journeyings which followed, whether 
to the lands of the East, or the islands of the West; no 
geographical romance, like that of the Odyssey, so attrac- 
tive to half-civilized ears, intrudes on the narrative, and in- 
terferes with the rigid unity of its moral purpose. And 
when the fathers of the chosen race are set before us, there is 
no element in the description to feed the pride of their chil- 
dren, though much to animate their faith and kindle their- 
love towards the God of their fathers. They are men of 
like passions with ourselves — not, like the demi-gods of 
Greece, heroes in power, and profligates in character. The 
faith of Abraham fails him twice under the pressure of 
temptation. Isaac, in his old age, betrays a weakness most 
unworthy of the son of Abraham, and heir of the promises. 
Jacob steals first the birth-right from his brother, and after- 
ward the blessing ; and his whole life is like one severe dis- 
cipline, to root out duplicity as well as to strengthen his 
faith. Amidst all these sins or follies of the Patriarchs, the 
purpose of God who chose them and their seed to be wit- 
nesses for His truth in the deepening idolatry of the nations, 
advances slowly and calmly to its fulfilment. When the 
appointed centuries have expired, ' that selfsame night ' 
the hosts of the Lord come forth from the iron furnace of 
their Egyptian bondage. Every fresh book from Genesis 
to Nehemiah, adds a new link to the golden chain. It re- 
veals the constant progress of a plan of moral govern- 
ment and spiritual recovery, which sweeps aside at every 
step the dreams and falsehoods of men, till the twilight 
yields at length to a joyful daybreak, in the fuller message 
of the Gospel, and the Sun of Righteousness rises upon the 
heathen darkness with healing in his wings." 



368 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

But had the voice of human vindication been silent, it 
is gratifying to know that an answer most convincing and 
indisputable, had been laid up for the confusion of the as- 
sailant of Old Testament History in the depositories of 
Egypt, in remote desert places where for ages traveller's 
foot had not trodden, and in those vast and mysterious 
mounds by the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, on 
which wandering Kurd and Bedouin for centuries had 
gazed with superstitious awe, and which tradition had asso- 
ciated with Nimrod, Nebuchadnezzar, and other mighty 
conquerors of old. When that answer was needed it ap- 
peared. Egypt from her tombs and temples, Edom and 
Moab from the wilderness, Assyria from her ruined mounds, 
bore testimony to the truth of that Word which, in their 
days of power and prosperity, pronounced their overthrow 
and desolation. 

The nature of this testimony may be illustrated by the 
discoveries made among the ruins of Herculaneum and 
Pompeii, and the use to which they have been applied. 
From the excavations carried forward in these two Roman 
towns, overwhelmed eighteen hundred years ago by the 
scoria? and ashes of Vesuvius, a lifelike picture is obtained 
of Koman arts and manners. The structure of the dwell- 
ings and gardens — the household furniture — the mosaics 
and paintings — the theatres and baths — the shops and their 
utensils — all unite to give us a perfect insight into the so- 
cial condition of the Romans of the Empire in all its cir- 
cumstantial reality. 

" Keturns the Past, awakening from the tomb? 
Home — Greece ! — 0, come ! — Behold — behold ! For this 
Our living world — the old Pompeii sees ; 
And built anew the town of Dorian Hercules ! 
House upon house — its silent halls once more 

Opes the broad Portico how lone 

The clear streets glitter in the quiet day — 

The footpath by the doors winding its lifeless way ! 



ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES. 369 

The roofs arise in shelter, and around 

The desolate Atrium — see 

The marble-tesselated floor — and there 

The very walls are glittering livingly 

With their clear colors. 

The earth, with faithful watch, has hoarded all ! 

Still stand the mute Penates in the hall ; 

Back to his haunts returns each ancient god. 

Why absent only from their ancient stand 

The Priests ? — waves Hermes his Caducean rod, 

And the wing'd victory struggles from the hand." — Schiller. 

No one would think of disputing the obvious inferences 
which these discoveries enable us to draw. The strong, 
clear light shed from Pompeii's opened vaults, has dispelled 
the obscurity which had hitherto rested on many points 
connected with the private life and economy of the ancients, 
and helped to explain many dark passages in the Roman 
poets and historians. It has also served to confirm much 
which they have written. 

What reason can be assigned why a like use should not 
be made of the far more ancient remains of Egypt and 
Assyria ? Why should not, for instance, those of Egypt, 
contemporaneous as they were with the era of Moses, be 
accepted as evidence, whether for or against the credibility 
and trustworthiness of his statements ? Could it be made 
to appear that they did not tally or correspond — that the 
one contradicted the other — at once would the infidel claim 
that the writings of the Hebrew lawgiver were thereby 
proved unworthy of credit. But, as in the famous contro- 
versy occasioned by the Zodiacs of Esneh and Denderah 
already noticed, all attempts to falsify Moses from this 
source have proved signal failures. It is one of the most 
remarkable phenomena in the annals of mankind that on 
the walls of the ruined temples and sepulchral chambers of 
Egypt, there is still preserved a more extensive and varied 
reproduction than even that of Pompeii, of a civilization 
16* 



370 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

dating back to within a few centuries of the flood. Not 
only the regal state and warlike achievements of their 
kings, with their civil and religious ceremonies, command 
an interest, — but the people, with all their private and do- 
mestic occupations, and in all their various castes, civil, mil- 
itary, and religious ; in their feasts and their funerals ; in 
their fields and their vineyards; in their amusements 
and their labors ; in their shops, in their kitchens ; by 
land and by water ; in their boats and their palanquins ; 
in the splendid public procession, and the privacy of the 
household chamber — seem to live again before us, — the 
almost unchanging climate having preserved the paint- 
ings in all their original freshness and vividness of color. 
Yet in all the unnumbered details there presented, no 
discrepancy with the sacred history can be found. There 
is nothing but agreement. " The whole monumental won- 
ders and antiquities of the land seem to have been pre- 
served," says Dr. Wilson, " as if for the express purpose 
of evincing the authenticity and illustrating the narratives 
of the Bible ; every single allusion of which, either to the 
circumstances of the country or of the people, is seen to 
have the minutest consistency with truth, — so strikingly so, 
indeed, as to have attracted the attention of every Egyp- 
tian antiquary." " The memorials of their manners, cus- 
toms, and institutions," says another writer, "which the 
people of the Pharaohs depicted on the walls of their sep- 
ulchres, afford a decisive because an unsuspicious test of the 
historical veracity of the Old Testament, and they have 
furnished confirmations of its minute accuracy, which must 
silence where they do not convince the most sceptical." 

Through the visit of Abraham, the history of the ancient 
Church became at a very early period connected with the 
land of Egypt. Driven thither by a famine which prevailed 
in Canaan, as he approached near its borders, he became 
alarmed respecting Sarah his wife, fearing that they would 
not scruple to put him to death in order to get her into 



ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES. 371 

their undisturbed possession. The cause of his fear appears 
to have been the circumstance of her complexion being so 
much fairer than that of the women of Egypt. " Behold 
now, I know that thou art a fair woman to look upon ; 
therefore it shall come to pass when the Egyptians shall see 
thee, that they shall say, this is his wife ; and they will kill 
me, but they will save thee alive." The pictorial representa- 
tions on "the monuments now show that a fair complexion was 
deemed a high recommendation in the age of the Pharaohs. 
Almost always the lighter tints with which females of high 
rank are drawn, are in striking contrast to their swarthy 
attendants. Thus does pagan art of that remote antiquity 
confirm the history of the Bible. 

The apprehensions of Abraham were partly realized. 
The beauty of Sarah attracted the notice of the Egyptians 
and of Pharaoh's court, and led to her being temporarily 
taken from him. This account apparently conflicts with the 
immemorial custom of the East requiring that the women 
should go closely veiled and be kept in careful seclusion 
from the society of men other than their husbands and near- 
est relatives. The answer is, that the social system of the 
Egyptians differed in this respect from that of other orien- 
tal nations. The monuments show that the Egyptian women 
in the days of the Pharaohs went unveiled, and were per- 
mitted to enjoy as much freedom as the females of modern 
Christendom. We may suppose, therefore, that prudence 
dictated Sarah's conforming to the customs of the land upon 
which she had now entered. 

From the account of the gift which Pharaoh bestowed 
upon Abraham at his departure, it has been sought to draw 
an inference hostile to the Mosaic narrative, because no 
mention is made in it of horses, though they were common 
in Egypt. This very omission is, however, a confirmation 
of the truthfulness of the history. It is accounted for by 
the fact that horses, though common in Egypt, were not 



372 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

yet in use among the Hebrews, and did not come into em- 
ployment until the time of the kings. In Solomon's reign a 
cavalry force was for the first time employed, and then it 
was comparatively small and an unwarranted innovation. 
Even in Egypt the horse is introduced into the monuments 
chiefly if not exclusively in cases of war ; and it was not 
under such auspices that Abraham appeared before Pharaoh. 
Hence the propriety of horses being omitted in the gift 
which Pharaoh made to him. In harmony with this and 
Abraham's character as a shepherd, there is a striking pas- 
toral scene depicted in the sides of a tomb hewn in a rock, 
on which, according to Mr. Wilkinson, " First came the 
oxen, over which is the number 834, cows 220, goats 3,234, 
and sheep 974. There are no horses. The Hebrews were 
shepherds in Egypt, and sheep appear on the monuments in 
great numbers." 

Ignorance of the condition of Egypt has been alleged 
against the relation of the dream of the chief butler of 
Pharaoh, because it supposes the cultivation of the vine, 
whereas Herodotus expressly asserts that in Egypt there 
were no vineyards, and Plutarch assures us that the natives 
of that country abhorred wine, considering it as the blood 
of Typhon. Could it be shown that those ancient writers 
were infallible, a serious difficulty would here be presented. 
But not only are' they contradicted on this point by other 
authorities, such as Diodorus and Athenseus, but discov- 
eries among the monuments have decided the question be- 
yond a doubt in favor of the sacred historian. According 
to Champollion, there are to be seen in the grottoes of Beni 
Hassan, minute representations of the vintage in all its 
parts, from the dressing of the vintage to the drawing off 
of the wine. There have also been found among the ruins 
of the old cities of the Pharaohs, remains of wine-vessels 
with unmistakable marks of having contained wine, and 
since the key to the hieroglyphics has been discovered, the 



ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES. 373 

very word, wine, has been deciphered, and thus proved to 
have been familiarly known to the people. 

It has also been objected that the sacredness of animals 
prevented the use of animal food, of which we read in the 
book of Genesis ; but on referring to the monuments, we find 
delineations of feasts and kitchen scenes, unanswerably con^ 
firming the sacred record. From the employment of bronze 
instruments among the Egyptians, even from the earliest 
ages, a case has been attempted to be made out against the 
statement that Tubal Cain was the father of all workers in 
iron, and to show that its use did not arise till a much later 
age. A sufficient answer to such an objection is, that there 
is no proof that the Egyptians did not use iron. Long after 
iron was known, implements continued to be made of bronze, 
from the great facility in working it. The obelisks and 
hieroglyphics would scarcely have been cut or the pyramids 
built, as Herodotus himself suggests, without the use of iron. 
And lastly, there are representations on the walls of Thebes 
which have the appearance of being those of steel. Thus 
the very objections of scepticism, upon investigation, have 
confirmed the truth of revelation. 

Many incidents in the interesting history of Joseph re- 
ceive valuable illustration from the scenes depicted on the 
monuments. Slaves were procured for Egypt, not merely 
in war, but also in trade with other nations, and in accord- 
ance with usage Joseph was brought there as an article of 
merchandise by an Arabian caravan. The buyer of the 
youthful slave was Potiphar, chief of Pharaoh's body guard 
and one of the high officers of his court. In existing paint- 
ings of marches and battle scenes, this kind of officer may 
be seen in attendance upon his sovereign, and he is always 
represented as a very important and influential person, one 
who possessed in a very high degree the royal confidence. 
This will account for the arbitrary power he possessed over 
Joseph, even supposing his state of servitude not sufficient 



374 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

for the purpose. Potiphar's licentious wife plotted the se- 
duction, and then the imprisonment and death of Joseph, 
and many representations of the Egyptian women convey 
an equally bad idea of their character, and prove that in 
Egypt the restraints on the females in the household were 
not those which prevailed generally in oriental countries. 
The situation which Joseph held in the house of Potiphar 
was that of steward, and in the tombs of Beni Hassan this 
kind of officer is represented discharging his duties and 
overseeing the domestic slaves. In other pictures the 
Egyptians carry flat baskets on their heads, placed one 
above another, in accordance with the custom alluded to 
by the chief baker of Pharaoh, in his account of his dream. 

When, in consequence of the chief butler's favorable 
account of Joseph, the king sent for him, we read that he 
shaved himself and changed his garments, and came to 
Pharaoh. Here, as we learn from the monuments, is an 
essentially Egyptian characteristic. It was not the custom 
of the Hebrews to shave the beard, except in cases of 
mourning, while that of the Egyptians was just the reverse. 
Joseph, probably, had hitherto adhered to his own national 
custom, yet, when he was called to the royal presence, it 
was necessary that he should conform to the usages of the 
court and kingdom. In this account, we have, therefore, a 
clear proof that the sacred historian had a minute acquaint- 
ance with the usages of the land. 

On being introduced to Pharaoh, Joseph is told of 
dreams which the king had dreamed, and which none of 
his magicians and wise men could interpret. This order 
of men is to be distinguished on the monuments, and from 
the inscriptions we learn that they were applied to for 
explanation and aid in all things which lay beyond the 
circle of common knowledge and action. Nothing, there- 
fore, can seem more natural than that when the king was 
perplexed by a very remarkable and repeated dream, his 



ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES. 375 

first impulse should be to summon the magicians and wise 
men. But in the very substance and description of the 
dreams themselves, we find convincing proof of the authen- 
ticity of the narrative which relates them. There appeared 
seven fat and seven poor kine (cows), to indicate years of 
plenty and years of famine. The cow was the peculiar 
Egyptian symbol of the earth, with its cultivation and 
produce. Kine, lean and fat, would consequently, in the 
region of the Nile, form the most expressive signs of coming 
abundance and of coming scarcity. Nor is this all. Not 
only does the coming of the fat and the lean kine out of 
the river correspond with the well known fact that the 
Nile is the source of plenty or starvation to the whole land, 
but there is another circumstance, lost to English readers 
by the inaccuracy of our translation, which proves the 
sacred writer's familiarity with the minute peculiarities of 
Egypt. The fat kine, it is added, fed in a " meadow," — but 
this word does not convey the exact meaning. The origi- 
nal means the aquatic plants of the Nile, particularly those 
of the litus kind, which were considered so valuable that 
they were reaped and gathered in as regular a harvest as 
the flax and corn. Evidently the history of Joseph could 
only have been penned by one who was well acquainted 
with the natural productions of the valley of the Nile. 

Upon the elevation of Joseph, he was clothed with 
garments of byssus or fine linen, which were highly es- 
teemed in Egypt, and appropriated exclusively to those of 
high rank. The signet ring, as an emblem of authority, 
and a necklace of gold, such as the monuments show beto- 
kened rank and eminence, were given to him. He was 
married to the daughter of Potipherah, a name not wanting 
on the monuments. This Potipherah, a person quite dis- 
tinct from Potiphar to whom he was sold, was high priest 
of Heliopolis, and as such occupied a very exalted position 
in the state. The marriage was effected under the direct 



376 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

sanction of the king, who, as high priest as well as king, 
exercised authority over the priesthood. If it be thought 
improbable that a foreigner like Joseph should ally himself 
with the daughter of so high a family, it is to be remem- 
bered that Joseph had become naturalized in Egypt, and 
there is evidence on the monuments that distinguished 
foreigners were sometimes admitted into the priesthood. 

Of the labors rendered by Joseph in collecting the 
produce of the country, we have clear and remarkable illus- 
tration in the Egyptian paintings. There are to be seen 
representations of vast granaries, before the door of which 
lie large heaps of corn already winnowed, while " a regis- 
trar of bushels" takes an account of the number of bushels 
brought to him by another man, who is engaged in meas- 
uring. The scene of entertainment in which Joseph is 
represented as eating separately from the other Egyptians, 
is in accordance with the principle of caste, to the highest 
class of which Joseph belonged ; and the position of the 
guests, that of sitting at table, though not oriental or patri- 
archal, is verified by the Egyptian monuments. A remark- 
able parallel to the migration of the family of Jacob into 
Egypt is depicted in a tomb at Beni Hassan, which some 
have even supposed to have a direct reference to that 
event. The scene is an arrival of strangers over whom the 
number 37 is written in hieroglyphics, bringing their goods 
with them upon asses. The first figure is an Egyptian 
scribe, who presents an account of their arrival to one of 
the chief officers of the king. They are then ushered into 
his presence, and two of the strangers advance, bringing 
presents of the wild goat and the gazelle. Four armed 
men follow leading an ass, on which there are two children 
in panniers, accompanied by a boy and four women. 
Another laden ass follows accompanied by two men, one 
of whom carries a bow and club, and the other musical 
instruments. Whatever the scene may actually represent, 
it is in striking harmony with the narrative of Genesis. 



ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES. 377 

Similar illustrations from the monuments of the won- 
derful accuracy of incidental allusions and references in the 
Mosaic history to Egyptian antiquities might be greatly 
multiplied, did our limits permit. There are, however, 
two direct illustrations of Scripture history so remarkable 
as justly to claim special attention. 

The first has reference to the state of humiliation and 
oppression to which the Israelites were reduced in Egypt, 
when another king arose who knew not Joseph or his 
services. The Scripture statement is that " the Egyptians 
made the children of Israel to serve with rigor ; and they 
made their lives bitter with hard bondage in mortar and 
in brick, and in all manner of service in the field ; all the 
service wherein they made them serve was with rigor." 
All this is represented to the letter in a painting which was 
found upon the walls of a tomb at Thebes. A copy and 
explanation of it was first furnished by the distinguished 
Italian scholar Rosellini in his great work on the monu- 
ments of Egypt. His account of it is headed — " Explana- 
tion of a picture representing the Hebrews as they were 
engaged in making brick." In this picture some of the 
laborers are employed in transporting the clay in vessels ; 
some in working it up with the straw : others in taking the 
bricks out of the moulds and setting them in rows to dry ; 
while others, by means of a yoke upon their shoulders, from 
which ropes are suspended at each end, are seen carrying 
the bricks already dried. The physiognomy of the Jews 
it is impossible to mistake ; and the splashes of clay with 
which their bodies are covered, the air of close and intense 
labor that is conveyed by the grouping on the left side of 
the picture, and, above all, the Egyptian taskmaster seated 
with his heavy baton, whose remorseless blows would 
doubtless visit the least relaxation of the slaves he was 
driving from their wearisome and toilsome task of making 
bricks, and spreading them to dry in the burning sun of 



378 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLL. 

Egypt, give a vivid impression of the exactitude of the 
Scripture phrase — "all their service, wherein they made 
them serve, was with rigor." 

The group of Egyptians to the right of the picture 
affords also a confirmation of the literal correctness of the 
inspired narrative and of the uniformity of all things in 
Egypt. We read in the 5th chapter of Exodus that when 
Moses and Aaron had been before Pharaoh, " he said, Be- 
hold the people of the land now are many, and ye make 
them rest from their burdens. And Pharaoh commanded 
the same day the taskmasters of the people and their 
officers, saying, Ye shall no more give the people straw to 
make brick, as heretofore ; let them go and gather straw 
for themselves. And the tale of bricks which they did 
make heretofore ye shall lay upon them ; ye shall not di- 
minish aught thereof." In consequence of this arbitrary 
and cruel order, the taskmasters hastened them, saying, 
" Fulfil your works, your daily tasks, as when there was straw. 
And the officers of the children of Israel which Pharaoh's 
taskmasters had set over them were beaten, and demanded, 
Wherefore have ye not fulfilled your task, in making brick 
both yesterday and to-day, as heretofore ? " The picture 
referred to shows the actual carrying out of this cruel mode 
of pi'ocedure. Two of the Egyptian officers over the Is- 
raelites, sufficiently distinguished from them by their head- 
dresses and complexions, are compelled by the blows of 
the taskmasters over them, to bear themselves the vessels 
of clay and the brick yoke, and to complete the work which 
they had failed to exact from the captives committed to 
their charge. That these men had not come forth to labor 
is sufficiently indicated by the right hand figure with the 
yoke, who, having not yet taken up his burden, has not yet 
girt his loins, like his companions and all the other laborers 
in the picture, and also according to the invariable custom 
in the East, but still wears his dress loose, after the fashion 



ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES, 379 

of the officer who is sitting in the centre with the baton, 
and of the supreme taskmaster (probably the personage 
by whom the tomb was excavated), who is represented as 
beating the officer his companion. 

So close is the representation by Egyptian artists of the 
very scene which the sacred Book describes ! 

But the existing evidence of the bondage in which the 
Israelites were held during the latter part of their sojourn 
in Egypt, is probably of far wider extent than this single 
picture. A learned writer * on the antiquities of Egypt 
has forcibly presented the considerations which support 
this view. 

" The great works of Egypt in that age were chiefly of a 
monumental character, and on these would the Israelites be 
employed. The quarries whence the stones were obtained 
were in the Sinaitic wilderness. Thither would the Israel- 
ites be marched in gangs, and the blocks of granite which 
were hewn in these quarries they would afterwards have to 
transport across the desert. Others of the oppressed race 
were employed, doubtless in making bricks of Nile mud, 
so extensively used in the walls of huge quadrangular pre- 
cincts of the temples, and the cloisters and cells attached 
to them. And as at that epoch the mechanical arts were 
extremely simple, the amount of work done depended 
mainly upon the amount of human force which the sov- 
ereign of Egypt could bring to bear in the construction of 
his works. If, then, there be truth in the Bible narrative, 
and if Rameses be the ' king who knew not Joseph,' 
we should expect to find that the monuments erected 
during his reign surpassed those of any other of the Pha- 
raohs, seeing none of them had such an amount of forced 
labor at their command. 

" Now we do not shrink from the test. There is a 
Pharaoh who is distinguished from all his predecessors and 

1 Osburn's Israel in Egypt, pp. 196-205. 



380 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

from all who came after him by the enormous number of 
the monumental memorials of his reign. There is a Pha- 
raoh whose name is stamped on every crumbling mound in 
Egypt and Nubia, and on almost every Coptic monument 
in the museums of Europe. There is a Pharaoh whose ex- 
isting monuments actually surpass those of all the other 
sovereigns of Egypt put together. That Pharaoh is Ra- 
meses. Every crumbling heap that dots the valley of the 
Nile — every ruined temple, almost every statue and sphinx 
in that land of wonders, proclaims that there was an epoch 
of fearful bondage in Egypt — an epoch when millions of 
slaves were urged by the lash to their daily tasks — and that 
there was a king in that land who reduced the full half of 
his subjects into slavery, and set them to work in the con- 
struction of cities, and strongholds and gigantic monu- 
ments, which, after four thousand years, excite the specta^ 
tor's astonishment, Over and over the soil is written, in 
ineradicable characters, the great fact of the oppression. 
The whole land cries aloud that once it was a 'house of 
bondage.' What a convincing and overwhelming proof 
of the truth of the Bible ! " 

The other direct illustration from the monuments of 
Egypt of the inspired history is the invasion of Judea by 
Pharaoh Shishak in the reign of Rehoboam, the son, of Sol- 
omon, — the history of which is given in the twelfth chapter 
of the second book of Chronicles. "We there find him 
marching against Jerusalem with chariots and horsemen 
and people without number — the Lubims, the Sukkims, and 
the Ethiopians. The humiliation and penitence of Reho- 
boam, under the warnings of Shemaiah the prophet, avert- 
ed from him the calamity of the entire loss of his king- 
dom ; but while the Lord declared that he should not 
utterly be destroyed, he nevertheless added, that the peo- 
ple should be servants of Shishak, — that is, should taste 
the bitterness of a foreign yoke. Shishak came and took 



ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES. 381 

away the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the 
king's treasures — " he took all " — and though his stern 
purpose was mollified by Him in whose hand are the hearts 
of kings, that he did not retain Judea in subjection, yet 
for the time it was reduced to the condition of a conquered 
province. 

On the walls of the great Temple at Karnak this suc- 
cessful invasion of Judah is commemorated. Copies of some 
of the inscriptions there remaining having found their way 
to Europe, the celebrated Champollion without ever having 
seen Egypt w y as enabled to detect the hieroglyphic name 
of this monarch and read it — " Beloved of Anion, She- 
shouk." It was four years afterwards before Champollion 
saw Egypt, during which interval, says Mr. Gliddon, " the 
name of Sheshonk and his captive nations had been exam- 
ined times without number by other hieroglyphists, and the 
names of all the prisoners had been copied by them and 
published, without any of them having noticed the extraor- 
dinary biblical corroboration thence to be deduced." On 
his passage toward Nubia, Champollion landed for an hour 
or two, about sunset, to snatch a hasty view of the ruins of 
Karnak ; and on entering one of the halls, he found a pic- 
ture representing a triumph, in which he instantly pointed 
out in the third line of a row of sixty-three prisoners (each 
indicating a city, nation or tribe) presented by Sheshonk to 
his god Anion, a figure with this inscription attached in 
hieroglyphic characters, " Judah melek kah," or " king of 
the country of Judah." 

This picture had been executed by the order of Shishak 
or Sheshonk, so that here was found the sculptured record 
of the invasion and the conquest recorded in the Chronicles. 
On the same picture were shields, containing in hiero- 
glyphics the names Bethhoron, Megiddo, Mahanaim, and 
some others, all towns through which Shishak passed on his 
invasion of Judea. 



382 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

What more complete and unambiguous corroboration 
of the Scripture history could be required ? 

Leaving Egypt, we will now proceed to another region 
in which remarkable discoveries confirmatory of the truth 
of the Bible have been unveiled. 

Half a century ago, the once famed capital of the Edom 
of Scripture was only known by the references to it in the 
ancient writers, and by some wild Arabian legends, which 
recognized the existence of a petrified city in the desert, 
whose inhabitants had been swept away by the vengeance 
of the Almighty. In the year 1812, the traveller Burkhardt 
first found a clue to the labyrinth in which the long lost 
city lay concealed. 

The value of that discovery as confirmatory of Holy 
Scripture, a brief sketch of the Bible record concerning 
Edom will enable us the better to understand. 

Desolate as Mount Seir now appears, it was one of the 
earliest seats of civilization, power and grandeur. Its his- 
tory goes back to the time of Esau, " the father of Edom ; " 
and we read that princes and dukes, eight successive kings, 
and again a long line of dukes, dwelt there before any king 
" reigned over Israel." At a period coeval with the Exodus, 
the land of Edom was in a highly cultivated state, with 
fields, vineyards, highways, and a numerous population, and 
Petra was probably even then the central point of an exten- 
sive caravan trade, which was conducted for many ages 
afterward between the countries of the Persian Gulf, Egypt, 
and the shores of the Mediterranean. According to allu- 
sions in the book of Job, himself an Edomite, the year and 
the months were regularly defined, kings and great men 
had been accustomed to build for themselves splendid 
tombs, and the people were in possession of great wealth 
in gold and silver. They were acquainted with the weaver's 
shuttle, and the use of scales, and made cheese from milk ; 
gardens were protected by ground traps and snares ; in- 



ARCHJSOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES. 383 

scriptions were cut on tablets, attached to the faces of the 
rocks ; archers had steel bows, with quivers for their arrows ; 
the spear, shield, and sword were ordinary weapons in bat- 
tle ; while the sound of the trumpet called to the combat, 
in which the war horse figured, finely described as having 
his " neck clothed with thunder.'' For many ages after the 
time of Job this people held and retained no mean emi- 
nence in arts and in arms, in science and in commerce, and 
in the wealth, refinement, and luxury which extensive and 
prosperous commerce brings along with it. But it lacked 
that righteousness which alone permanently exalteth a 
people. For numerous acts of treachery and hostility, com- 
mitted at different periods against the descendants of Jacob, 
though a kindred race, a malediction of the most awful de- 
scription was pronounced upon the land of Esau's posterity. 
From the height of worldly prosperity it was doomed to 
fall into the most abject state of wretchedness and desola- 
tion. While it was yet a land of palaces and fortresses, of 
wise men and mighty men, the word of prophecy had thus 
spoken its fate : 

" From generation to generation it shall lie waste, 
None shall pass through it forever and ever. 
But the cormorant and the bittern shall possess it ; 
The owl also and the raven shall dwell in it : 
And He shall stretch out upon it the line of confusion, 
And the stones of emptiness. 
They shall call the nobles thereof to the kingdom, 
But none 6hall be there. 
And all her princes shall be nothing. 
And thorns shall come up in her palaces, 
Nettles and brambles in the fortresses thereof: 
And it shall be a habitation for dragons, • 

And a court for owls." — Isaiah xxxiv. 10-13. 

" The pride of thine heart hath deceived thee, 
Thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, whose habitation is high ; 
That saith in his heart, Who shall bring me down to the ground ? 



384 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, 

And though thou set thy nest among the stars, 

Thence will I bring thee down, saith the Lord. 

How are the things of Esau searched out ! . . . 

How are his hidden things sought up ! 

Shall I not in that day, saith the Lord, 

Even destroy the wise men out of Edom, 

And understanding out of the mount of Esau ? 

And thy mighty men, Teman, shall be dismayed, 

To the end that every one of the mount of Esau 

May be cut off by slaughter." — Obadiah. 

So exactly did the ruined city which was brought to 
view among the desert ranges of Mount Seir answer to the 
description given by the prophets, that if a painter had 
sought to depict a city from the words of the prophecy, he 
could hardly have failed to give some resemblance to her 
present appearance. The travellers found her holding the 
heights of the hill, her dwellings in the clefts of the rocks, 
like the nests of the eagle, set among the stars, and, viewing 
'the strength of her position, could imagine her former 
boast : Who shall bring me down to the ground? Yet the 
extent of her desolation manifested how fully Jehovah had 
redeemed his word — thence will I bring thee down. La- 
borde describes the first view of the city, bursting upon the 
eye of the traveller approaching from the south, from the 
heights above, as presenting c * the most singular spectacle, 
the most enchanting picture, which nature has wrought in 
her grandest mood of creation ; which men, influenced by 
the vainest dreams of ambition, have yet bequeathed to 
succeeding generations. At Palmyra, nature renders the 
works of man insignificant by her own immensity, and her 
boundless horizon — here she appears delighted to set in her 
own noble frame-work his productions, which aspire, and 
not unsuccessfully, to harmonize with her own majestic yet 
fantastic appearance. The spectator hesitates for a moment 
whether is most worthy of admiration : nature who invites 



AECHJ30L0GICAL DISCOVERIES. 385 

his attention to her matchless girdle of rocks, wondrous as 
well for their colors as for their forms, or the men, who 
feared not to intermingle the works of their genius with 
such splendid efforts of creative power." The city is situ- 
ated in a hollow, surrounded by a superb enclosure of rocks, 
pierced with myriads of tombs. The ravine into which the 
traveller enters from the east is represented as becoming 
more and more imposing at every step, and the excavations 
and sculptures more frequent on both sides, till it presents 
at last a continued street of tombs ; beyond which the 
rocks, gradually approaching each other, appear all at once 
to close without any outlet. There is, however, one fright- 
ful chasm for the passage of the stream, which furnishes, as 
it did anciently, the only avenue to Petra on this side. 
This passed, the traveller reaches an area once filled with 
its close ranged dwellings, and loud with its busy life — now 
silent and strewn with heaps of ruin, fragments of founda- 
tions, pavements, and arches ; while all around the precipi- 
tous cliffs hewn into pillared facades, and honey-combed 
with sumptuous chambers, show where the princes of Edom 
once dwelt " in the clefts of the rock, and held in pride the 
heights of the hill." (Jer. xlix. 16.) The cry of the bit- 
tern alone now disturbs the awful desolation — " the line of 
confusion and the stones of emptiness." The whole territory 
of the descendants of Esau has been swept as by "the 
besom of destruction," and presents a miracle of evidence 
which defies cavil or contradiction. 

" I would," says Mr. Stephens, " that the sceptic could 
stand as I did among the ruins of this city among the 
rocks, and there open the sacred book, and read the words 
of the inspired penman, written when this desolate city 
was one of the greatest cities in the world. I see the scoff 
arrested, his cheek pale, his lips quivering, and his heart 
quaking for fear, as the ruined place cries out to him in a 
voice loud and powerful as that of one risen from the dead ; 
17 



386 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 



though he would not believe Moses and the prophets, he 
believes the handwriting of God himself in the desolation 
and eternal ruin around him." 

" Many prophets," says Laborde, " have announced the 
misery of Idumaea, but the strong language of Ezekiel can 
alone come up to the height, or reach the acme of this great 
desolation." " Every one that passeth by Edom is aston- 
ished at it," as the prediction intimated. And the first sen- 
timent of " astonishment " in the contemplation of it is, 
how such a region could ever have been adorned with 
cities, or tenanted for ages by a powerful and opulent peo- 
ple. " Its present aspect would belie its ancient history," 
says Dr. Keith, " were not that history corroborated by 
the many vestiges of former cultivation, by the remains of 
walls and paved roads, and by the ruins of cities still ex- 
isting in this ruined country. The total cessation of its 
commerce ; the artificial irrigation of its valleys wholly 
neglected; the destruction of all the cities, and the con- 
tinued spoliation of the country by the Arabs ; the perma- 
nent exposure for ages of the soil, unsheltered by its ancient 
groves, and unprotected by any covering from the rays of 
the sun ; the unobstructed encroachments of the desert, 
and of the drifted sands from the borders of the Red Sea ; 
the consequent absorption of the water of the springs and 
the springlets during summer — are causes which may have 
all combined their baneful operation in rendering Edom 
most desolate, the desolation of desolations." 

" Perfect as has been the fulfilment of the prophecy in 
regard to Iduinsea, in no one particular has its truth been 
more awfully verified than in the complete destruction of 
its inhabitants, in the extermination of the race of the 
Edomites. In the same day, and by the voice of the same 
prophets, came the separate denunciations against the de- 
scendants of Israel and of Edom, declaring against both a 
complete change of their temporal condition ; and while 



ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES. 387 

the Jews have been dispersed in every country under 
heaven, and are still in every land, a separate and unmixed 
people, 4 the Edomites have been cut off forever, and there 
is not any remaining of the house of Esau.' 

" ' Wisdom has departed from Teman, and understand- 
ing from the mount of Esau ; ' and the miserable Arab who 
now roams over the land cannot appreciate or understand 
the works of its ancient inhabitants." 

To the north of Edom, in a region now called the Hau- 
ran, but formerly comprising the countries of Bashan and 
Moab, surprising discoveries of a most interesting charac- 
ter have recently yielded fresh evidence of the reality of 
the Scripture history. 

In an inaugural address at Belfast, Dr. Porter l says : " I 
remember well, how in former days I studied the geogra- 
phy of Palestine ; and with what intense interest I read of 
the great cities and warlike exploits of Og, the giant king 
of Bashan. I observed, with no little surprise, that a single 
province of his little kingdom contained ' three score cities 
fenced with walls, besides unwalled towns a great many.' 
I remember how on turning to my atlas, I found that the 
whole of Bashan was not larger than an ordinary English 
county. I was astonished, and though my faith in the di- 
vine record was not shaken, yet I thought that some strange 
statistical mystery hung over the passage. That one city, 
nourished by the commerce of a mighty empire, might 
grow till her people could be numbered by millions, I could 
well believe ; that two or three might spring up in favored 
spots, clustered together, I could also believe; but that 
sixty walled cities, besides unwalled towns a great many, 
should exist at such a remote age, far from the sea, with no 
rivers, and little commerce, appeared altogether inexpli- 
cable. Inexplicable -though it seems, it was strictly true. 
On the very spot, with my own eyes, I have verified it. 
1 Author of "Five Years in Damascus." 



388 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

More than thirty of these great cities I have myself vis- 
ited. When standing, on one occasion, on the summit of 
the mountain range of Bashan, I could see at a single 
glance every city the sacred penman referred to. Many 
of them, though deserted for centuries, have their massive 
walls and massive old houses still perfect. The Cyclopean 
architecture of the aboriginal inhabitants of Palestine — of 
the Emim, and Anakim and Rephaim — still stands to bear 
testimony to the facts of revelation." 

Elsewhere, the same learned writer says : " In the mi- 
nutest particulars my researches bear testimony to the 
faithfulness of Bible narrative and description. The nu- 
merous and extensive ruined cities and villages scattered 
over its surface tell of its former populousness, and are the 
present memorials of its ancient strength and greatness. 
The oak forests still cover its mountain sides ; its pastures 
are still celebrated for their richness, and its soil is prover- 
bial for its fertility. The ancient names, too, cling to it 
yet ; and we have Bashan, and Golan, and Kenath, and 
Salchah, and Bozrah, and Kerioth, and Hauran and Edrei, 
but little changed by the lapse of long centuries. Thus 
does it appear that the more extensive our research, and 
the more minute our investigations, the more full and ac- 
curate will be our illustrations of the Word of God." — 
Five Years in Damascus , vol. ii. pp. 271, 272. 

Beyond Salchah, the frontier town of Bashan, which 
was the farthest point reached by Dr. Porter, discoveries 
of equal if not greater interest have since been made in 
the neighboring country — the old land of Moab. Scarcely 
anything was known of its interior, and especially of the 
eastern portion, until the year 1857, when for the first time 
it was explored by a modern traveller, Mr. Graham, of 
Cambridge. The following extract from his contribution 
to the Cambridge Essays for 1858, will give some idea of 
the result of his researches : " Perhaps of all those which 



ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES. 389 

we saw in our journey, none struck us more than the large 
towns in the plain south and east of Salchah. Among 
them there was one in particular which made an impres- 
sion on us we shall never lose — it was Um-el-Jemul, the 
ancient Beth-Gamul, a very large city, and to be compared 
almost with the modern Jerusalem. It is very perfect; and 
as we walked about among the streets, and entered every 
house, and opened the stone doors, and saw the rooms as if 
they had just been left, and then thought that we were 
actually in the private dwellings of a people who for two 
thousand years had ' ceased to be a people, 5 we felt a kind 
of awe, and realized in a manner that we never, perhaps, 
could feel elsewhere, how perfectly every tittle of God's 
word is carried out ; and whether it be a blessing that is 
spoken or a curse, it continues to be so — nothing is remit- 
ted until all be fulfilled. These cities of Moab, which are 
still so perfect that they might again be inhabited to-mor- 
row, have been during many centuries unpeopled. The 
land about them, rich and fruitful as any in Syria, has long 
ceased to produce aught but shrubs and herbs, the food of 
the camel and the antelope. The sound of the rejoicing at 
harvest-time, and the song of the grape-gatherers, has long- 
since died away ; and for centuries, these old cities, which 
were once the scene of so* much life and so much rejoicing, 
have been still ; and no sound, save the cry of wild animals, 
has been heard in them. How wonderfully true are these 
words — ' Moab is destroyed. Give wings unto Moab, that 
it may flee and get away ; for the cities thereof shall be 
desolate, without any to dwell therein. Moab is spoiled 
and gone out of her cities. Moab is confounded, and judg- 
ment is come upon the plain country. Upon Beth-Gamul 
. . . and upon Kerioth, and upon Bozrah, and upon all 
the cities of the land of Moab far and near, the horn of 
Moab is cut off, and his arm is broken, saith the Lord.' 
Again, in all this country there is now no fruit except at 



390 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

Salchah, where there are some wild vines and pomegran- 
ates and figs, but before they are quite ripe the Arabs of 
the desert plunder them. Is not this predicted ? ' The 
spoiler has fallen upon thy summer fruits and upon thy 
vintage. And joy and gladness is taken from the plentiful 
field, and from the land of Moab. And I have caused wine 
to fail from the wine-press ; none shall cry with shouting ; 
their shouting shall be no shouting. And Moab shall be 
destroyed from being a people, because he hath magnified 
himself against the Lord. Woe unto thee, O Mo|b ! . . . 
for thy sons are taken captives and thy daughters captives.' 
Can we have stronger evidence of the accurate fulfilment 
of prophecy than by comparing what we see in this coun- 
try with the words of Jeremiah spoken 2,500 years ago V 
When he spoke these words Moab was powerful and proud, 
and laughed at the thought of what he said. They cried — 
c We are strong and mighty, and no enemy can overcome 
us ! How say ye, we are mighty, and strong men for the 
way ! We have heard of the pride of Moab (he is exceed- 
ing proud), his loftiness and his arrogancy, and his pride, 
and the haughtiness of his heart.' " 

No less than fourteen of these ancient towns were visit- 
ed by Mr. Graham, and in connection with them he further 
remarks : " When we find (such) great stone cities (Deut. 
iii), walled and unwalled, with stone gates, and so crowded 
together that it becomes a matter of wonder how all the 
people could have lived in so small a tract of country; 
when we see houses built of such huge and massive stones 
that no force which could ever have been brought against * 
them in that country, would have been sufficient to batter 
them down; when we find rooms in those houses so large 
and lofty that many of them would be considered fine 
rooms in a large house in Europe ; and lastly, when we 
find some of these towns bear the very name which cities 
in that country bore before the Israelites came out of 



ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES. 391 

Egypt, I think we cannot help feeling the strongest con- 
viction that we have before us the cities of the giants 
(Rephaim), the cities of the land of Moab. They have 
been gradually deserted as the Arabs of the desert have 
increased in number, and now, south and east of Salkhad, 
not one of these many towns is inhabited." .... 

..." Very different is the present condition of the 
towns of Moab from those of the neighboring Edom — from 
those heaps of rubbish which are strewn over the basin of 
Petra— the nest of the eagle that built in the crags torn to 
pieces, in token that it will be built no more. In this con- 
trast there would seem to be some special design of Provi- 
dence; and it is in accordance with prophetic hints and 
foreshado wings of changes that yet lie in the obscurity of 
future time. For while Idumea is to be a i perpetual deso- 
lation,' it is written, ' I will bring again the captivity of 
Moab in the latter days, saith the Lord.' The tide of life 
has ebbed forever from the one, and left it enrpty and for- 
lorn as a naked beach ; but here it may return to its former 
channels, and flow with a fuller current than of old. The 
household lamp may once more be lighted in the dwellings ; 
the cheerful stir and murmur of men he heard in the streets; 
the song of the reaper, the joy of the vintage, the innocent 
mirth of children ; and, sweeter than all, the melodies of 
Sabbath praise." 

The neighboring land of the kindred people of Ammon 
has also yielded up its quota of evidence for the Bible. 
" We descended," writes Lord Lindsay, " a precipitous 
strong slope into the valley of Ammon, and crossed a beau- 
tiful stream, bordered by a strip of stunted grass. The 
hills on both sides were rocky and bare, and pierced with 
excavations and natural caves. Here, at a turning in the 
narrow valley, commence the antiquities of Ammon. It 
was situated on both sides of the stream, — the dreariness of 
its present aspect is quite indescribable, it looks like the 



392 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

abode of Death. The valley stinks with dead camels; one 
of them was rotting in the stream ; and though we saw 
none among the ruins, they were absolutely covered in 
every direction with their dung. That morning's ride 
would have convinced a sceptic. How runs the prophecy? 
' I will make Rabbah a stable for camels, and the Ammon- 
ites a couching place for flocks ; and ye shall know that I 
am the Lord.' 

" Nothing but the croaking of frogs, and screams of wild 
birds, broke the silence as we advanced up this valley of 
desolation. We examined the ruins more at detail the fol- 
lowing morning. It was a bright and cheerful day; but 
still the valley is a very dreary spot, even when the sun 
shines brightest. Vultures were garbaging on a camel, as 
we slowly rode back through the glen. Ammon is now 
quite deserted, except by the Bedouins, who water their 
flocks at its little river. Re-ascending the slope, we met 
sheep and goats by thousands, and camels by hundreds, 
coming down to drink. 'Ammon shall be a desolation, 
and Rabbah of the Ammonites shall be a desolate heap.' " 

But the crowning discovery of the century has been in 
a yet more distant region, yielding an amount of additional 
illustration and confirmation of the sacred word as great 
and important as it was unexpected. 

A thousand miles remote from the highways of modern 
commerce and the routes of ordinary travel, a far mightier 
city than the rock-built metropolis of Edom lay buried in 
the sandy earth of a half- desert Turkish province, with no 
certain trace of its place of sepulture. Vague tradition 
said that it was hidden somewhere near the river Tigris ; 
but when Xenophon with his Greeks in their celebrated 
retreat passed by the mound of Nimroud which he de- 
scribes, the name of Nineveh was already forgotten on its 
very site. It afterwards reappears on the pages of Greek 
and Roman writers, but for ages the former queen of na- 



ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES. 393 

tions was nothing more than a name, suggesting the idea 
of an ancient capital of fabulous splendor and magnificence ; 
a mighty collection of palaces and other buildings, vast but 
scarcely real. 

More than two thousand years had it thus lain in its 
unknown grave, when an English traveller and a French 
consul, Layard and Botta, sought the seat of the once pow- 
erful empire, and searching 'mid 

" Hillocks heap'd 
On what were chambers, arch crush'd column strown 
In fragments, choked-up vaults and frescoes steep'd 
In subterranean damps " — 

discovered the buried city, disentombed her temple palaces 
from the sepulchre of ages, and unveiled to an astonished 
and curious world, the pomp and pageantry of Assyrian 
monarchs. The Nineveh of Scripture, the great city " of 
three days' journey," that was " laid waste and there was 
none to bemoan her," whose greatness sank ere the coming 
orb of Roman dominion had ascended the horizon, the 
Nineveh in which the captive tribes of Israel had labored 
and wept, was, after a sleep of twenty centuries, again 
brought to light. The long lost was found. The regal 
halls were once more trodden ; the proofs of ancient splen- 
dor were again beheld by human eyes, and the gorgeous 
description of the poet drawn in colors borrowed from the 
sacred page, shown to have been a reality : 

" The days of old return ; — I breathe the air 
Of the young world ; — I see her giant sons 
Like to a gorgeous pageant in the sky 
Of summer's evening, cloud on fiery cloud 
Thronging up heaped, — before me rise the walls 
Of the Titanic city — brazen gates — 
Towers — temples — palaces enormous piled — 
Imperial Xineveh, the earthly queen ! 
In all her golden pomp I see her now." — Atherston. 

That he may the better understand the range and ex- 



394 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

tent of these discoveries, let the reader suppose himself 
standing on the highest part of the city of Mosul on the 
west bank of the Tigris. Looking across the river, the 
eye rests on a long range of ancient mounds. At the 
southern end is the irregular platform on which stands the 
village of ISTebby Yeonas, with its spacious mosque and 
capacious cemetery. Towards the northern extremity 
rises the huge plateau of Kouyunjik, whose ample surface, 
though the palace of ancient Nineveh lies entombed be- 
neath, has long rewarded the toil of the cultivator as richly 
as the plain below. This mound is but one of many. 
Others are found at ISTimroud, about eighteen miles lower 
down the river, near the junction of the Greater Zab ; at 
Karasules, about twelve miles north of Kimroud, and at 
Khorsabad, nearly the same distance north of Kouyunjik. 
These points form the four corners of a rhomboid, the 
circumference of which is sixty miles, which answers to 
the three days' journey of the prophet Jonah, twenty 
miles being as in ancient days the computation of a day's 
journey. Within this space a vast number of smaller 
mounds, remains of pottery, bricks and other fragments, 
indicate where once stood the private habitations of the 
great city. 

Other mounds of great extent are found at Kalah 
Sherghat, supposed to be the ruins of Calah (Gen. x. 11) 
on the opposite bank of the Tigris, forty miles below Nim- 
roud, at Babylon and Borsippa, Seukerah and Niffer. They 
are also found along the Khabor and Euphrates, and on 
the plains of Babylonia and Chaldea as well as Mesopotamia 
and Assyria. 

Many of these have been recently explored, and the 
most precious treasures that ever rewarded the labors of 
the antiquary have been brought to light ; for deep down 
in their interior have been buried for thousands of years, 
palaces of monarchs who reigned from the time when 



ARCHAEOLOGICAL DIS COTERIES. 395 

Abraham went forth from Ur of the Chaldees until near 
the close of Israel's captivity in Babylon, or for a period 
dating back a thousand years before the Trojan war and 
extending to the early dawn of Roman greatness. 

Most of the huge mounds already explored contain, 
buried up at various depths, extensive remains of ancient 
palaces. The walls of these are of great thickness, with a 
panelling to the height of about ten feet of slabs of alabas- 
ter. Every portal is guarded by strange mythic figures 
(winged bulls or lions with human heads), while the slabs 
are adorned with sculptures of the most elaborate work- 
manship, painted in gorgeous colors, and in many cases as 
fresh in their sharp and delicate lines as if newly from the 
chisel and pencil of the artist. These sculptures are the 
records of the empire, and under each picture are engraved, 
in characters filled up with bright copper, inscriptions 
describing the scenes represented. The visitor to these 
chambers, so long lost not merely to the sight but to the 
knowledge of mankind, sees spread before him a highly 
illustrated historical volume, in which are minutely and 
effectively, though often most grotesquely, displayed all the 
leading pursuits and characteristics of an extinct nation ; 
while the incidental details, no less than the prominent 
features, strikingly and impressively illustrate Scripture 
statements, and that to such an extent that there is scarcely 
an obscure fact or expression in the Old Testament that is 
not made clear by the knowledge we have already derived, 
or may hope hereafter to obtain from the prosecution of 
these discoveries. "Three thousand years their cloudy 
wings expand," and the men who then trod these halls again 
live before him. There he sees them " portrayed upon the 
wall, the images of the Chaldeans, portrayed with vermil- 
ion, girded with girdles upon their loins, exceeding in dyed 
attire upon their heads, all of them princes to look to, after 
the manner of Babylonians of Chaldea " (Ezek. xxxiii. 14, 



396 TESTIMONY -OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

15) — such as idolatrous Jerusalem saw when she "doted 
upon the Assyrians her neighbors, captains and rulers, 
clothed most gorgeously, horsemen riding upon horses, all 
of them desirable young men" (ver. 12). There are to be 
seen, as is believed, the " mighty hunter," Nimrod himself, 
strangling a young lion by pressing it against his chest — the 
eunuch in the palace of the king of Babylon — the king's 
cupbearer, to whom was appointed " a daily provision of 
the king's meat and of the wine which he drank," — " the 
governors, treasurers, and rulers of provinces," such as sur- 
rounded Nebuchadnezzar's image of gold — "the most 
mighty men " in the army, such as obeyed the behests of 
the same monarch in casting Shadrach and his heroic com- 
panions into " the burning fiery furnace " — while figures of 
the great kings of Assyria, in all their pomp and magnifi- 
cence, everywhere presented, seem again to exact the awe 
and veneration which they once inspired. 

As might be expected in the case of so warlike a people, 
warlike exploits occupy the largest portion of this illustrated 
gallery. All the incidents of the successful campaign are 
registered with a circumstantiality and minuteness indica- 
tive of the national vanity. Horsemen " lifting up both the 
bright sword and the glittering spear," and horses " swifter 
than the leopards, and more fierce than the evening wolves" 
— bowmen, shield bearers, and slingers, for whom were 
prepared " shields and spears, and helmets, and habergeons, 
and bows, and slings to cast stones " — chariots and batter- 
ing rams, the assault, the charge, the retreat and the pur- 
suit, the burning fort, and the sacked city — bearded war- 
riors " furiously driving their chariot in pursuit of the rem- 
nant of the inhabitants, who are flying over a rocky plain, 
strewn with headless bodies" — the soldier " deliberately - 
plunging his sword into the breast of an adversary whom 
he has driven down upon his knees " — the king stopping his 
chariot *' to command a register to be made of the number 



ARCHiEOLOGICAE DISCOVERIES. 397 

of the heads of the slain piled up in a heap before him " 
(2 Kings x. 8), and, hovering over dead and dying, " the 
ravenous beasts of every sort " (Ezek. xxxix. 4) — these hor- 
rid accompaniments of a horrid system are represented, 
with surprising vigor and effect. It is as if, instead of read- 
ing the wonderfully graphic description of Ezekiel (chap, 
xxvi. 7—12), the visitor actually looked on "the king of 
kings coming from the north with horses, with chariots, and 
with horsemen, and companies, and much people ; he slays 
with the sword the villages in the fields ; he makes a fort 
against the city ; he casts a mount against it, he lifts up a 
buckler against it; he sets engines of war against the walls, 
and with his axe breaks down the towers. 

" The walls shake at the noise of the horsemen and of 
the wheels, and of the chariots, when he enters into the 
gates or through the breach with the hoofs of his horses, 
he treads down every street, he slays the inhabitants by the 
sword, and strong garrisons go down to the ground. His 
soldiers make a spoil of wealth and merchandise. They 
break down the walls and the pleasant houses." "A fire 
devoureth before them, and behind them a flame burnetii. 
The land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind 
them a desolate wilderness ; yea, and nothing escapes 
them." (Joel ii. 3.) 

To these stirring scenes succeed the treaty of peace, 
the triumphal march, the manacled prisoners supplicating 
for mercy, " the captive child and the mother that bare it 
cast out into another country" (Jer. xxii. 26), and tribute 
bearers enriching the imperial treasury with the spoils of 
enslaved provinces and conquered kingdoms. 

The charge of cruelty which the sacred writings bring 
against ancient Nineveh are fearfully sustained by these 
sculptured scenes. In the disclosures made in the "Hall of 
Judgment" and the " Chamber of Judgment," the " woe " 
which the prophet Nahum denounced against " the bloody 



398 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

city," is shown to have been well deserved. In the bassi- 
rilievi here are to be seen prisoners, some of them supposed 
to be Jews or Samaritans, having rings in their lips, to 
which is attached a cord held by the king, embodying lit- 
erally the metaphor in Isaiah's prophetic message sent in 
reply to the prayer of Hezekiah — " Because thy rage against 
me and thy tumult is come up into mine ears, therefore 
will I put my hook in thy nose, and my bridle in thy lips, 
and I will turn thee back by the way by which thou 
earnest." (Isa. xxxvii. 29.) One prisoner, in addition to 
having his hands manacled, has. on his ankles strong rings 
fastened by a heavy bar, the condition in which the Assyr- 
ian king took Manasseh to Babylon (2 Chron. xxiii. 11); 
and perhaps, resembling that of Zedekiah when bound, at a 
later period, with fetters of brass. (2 Kings xxv. 7 ; Jer. 
xxxix. 7.) In another group is a man naked, with limbs 
outstretched, and wrists and ankles fastened to pegs in the 
table or floor, while the " chief of the slayers " is, with a 
curved knife, beginning to remove the skin from the back 
of the arm of the prisoner, whose head is turned towards 
the king imploring pardon, the very words of which petition 
may possibly be contained in the cuneatic inscription above. 
In another scene may be recognized the fate of Zedekiah, 
the king thrusting the point of the spear into the eyes of 
the supplicating prisoner, while he holds in his left hand a 
cord attached to rings in the lips of two other captives. 
Well, therefore, did " the bloody city " merit the prophet's 
similitude of " an old lion, tearing in pieces his victims for 
his whelps, and strangling them for his lionesses, and fill- 
ing his holes with prey, and his dens with ravin." 
. The early Assyrian kings, like the illustrious founder 
of their monarchy, were " mighty hunters," and their ex- 
ploits in the chase of wild animals are vividly represented 
by the sculptures. Among this class of pictures, " the wild 
bull in a net," or enclosure of felled trees, as alluded to by 
Isaiah (ii. 20), is seen exhibiting his impotent rage. 



ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES. 399 

The Assyrian gods also are there — Baal, Nisroch and 
Asherah — still the same as when their portraits were drawn 
five and twenty centuries ago — cut from the trees of the 
forest, decked with silver and gold, fastened with nails, 
and clothed with purple and blue. The very star to which 
Amos alludes (v. 26) is yet on those palace walls above the 
horned cup of the idol — her 

" Whom the Phoenicians called 
Astarte, Queen of Heaven, with crescent horns, 
To whose bright image, nightly by the moon, 
Sidonian virgins paid their vows and songs." 

There too, the " grove " of Scripture has been identified 
with the " sacred tree " supposed to be an emblem or sym- 
bol of the same goddess who was the Oriental Venus. The 
winged bulls and other combinations of animal forms with 
gigantic human faces, so frequent in the sculptures, still 
faithfully guard these deserted halls, and are, probably, 
traditional representations of the cherubim that were placed 
by God as the guardians of Paradise, and which hence came 
to be symbolic guardians of things or places to which access 
was forbidden. — " Before those wonderful forms," says Dr. 
Layard, " Ezekiel, Jonah, and others of the prophets stood, 
and Sennacherib bowed ; and even the patriarch Abraham 
himself may have possibly looked upon them." In the floor 
of the inner court, Botta found secret cavities containing 
small images of baked clay of repulsive hybrid forms; these 
being, it is suggested, the Teraphim or images such as 
Rachel took from her father and put in the camel's furni- 
ture, and sat upon them (Gen. xxxi. 19, 30, 31), the signifi- 
cation of the original word according with the terrifying 
aspect of these figures. In the "divine chamber" were 
found the figures of two magi with a gazelle in one hand 
and the other uplifted in prayer ; and it is inferred that in 
this chamber they were wont to be consulted by the king, 
the blood of the victims being poured into a cavity in a 



400 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

slab in the floor. These magi, it is supposed from their 
form and features, are one of the four orders of Chaldeans 
mentioned by Daniel, to whom the Assyrian kings resorted, 
on occasions the most trivial or important, for the interpre- 
tation of dreams, or the solution of political problems. 

The sumptuous convivialities of the Assyrian court are 
delineated in the " banqueting hall " in which the king was 
wont to entertain " the nobles and princes of the provinces 
(Esther i. 3-7), in celebration of his conquests when the 
harp and the viol were in their feasts ; " and here too is 
probably the very recess in which stood the wine vase of 
a size to contain royal wine in abundance according to the 
state of the king, while his guests are in the act of drink- 
ing his health or of pledging each other hi uplifted cups. 
"The scene exhibited on such occasions," says a recent 
visitor to these ruins, "especially at night, when these 
long galleries and richly sculptured chambers were illu- 
minated by the light of lamps — ' cressets fed with naphtha 
or asphaltum' — must have been gorgeous and imposing 
beyond measure." 

The question as to the early origin of writing, which 
scepticism has brought to bear against the authenticity of 
the book of Genesis, is also settled by these discoveries, 
gome of the sculptures show manuscripts unrolled as they 
were read, telling us that the Assyrians were acquainted 
with writing on parchment or papyrus. Clay seals also, 
which seem to have been attached to such documents, 
burned up or long since decayed, and scribes writing down 
the long lists of the slain or the number of the captives, 
corroborate this testimony. 

The art of printing even was in some degree known to 
those early ages, as is testified by the innumerable bricks 
stamped with the name of the king before they were 
burned, which have been brought up from the recesses of 
the mounds. Some of these are stamped with inscriptions 
more than three centuries older than Abraham. 



ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES. 401 

The letters on the marble walls, as also the intaglios 
on seals and cylinders, were engraved with a sharp instru- 
ment ; and when the inscription was on the floor of a palace, 
the letters were often filled up with some soft metal illus- 
trating that passage of Job (xix. 23, 24), " O that my words 
were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock forever ! " 

By a marvellous coincidence, just as the annals of the old 
Assyrian empire, engraved in alabaster and marble, were 
brought to light ; the character and language in which they 
were written, were at length deciphered, after having baffled 
the ingenuity and learning of ages. By the profound study 
of some fragments of cuneiform or arrow-headed inscrii> 
tions brought from Persepolis, Professor Grotefend had 
succeeded in determining the names of Cyrus, Xerxes, 
Darius and Hystaspes, comprising nearly one third of the 
alphabet, and thus laid the foundation of the discovery. 
This was in 1802. Little farther progress was made until 
the year 1836, when a more perfect clue was found by Col. 
Rawlinson on a rock near the ruins of Behistan — the Ba- 
gistan of ancient history. Here, on the perpendicular face 
of a precipice more than 300 feet above the base, is sculp- 
tured King Darius holding his bow, with two state officers 
behind ; under his feet lies one rebel, while a line of nine 
others stand before him, chained one behind another, with 
their hands tied. Accompanying these figures are several 
explanatory inscriptions, one of considerable length, written 
in the Persian, Median or Scythian and Assyrian languages. 
The reading of the Persian portion of these inscriptions, 
accomplished for the more difficult and complicated Assyr- 
ian versions, what the Greek of the Rosetta stone did for 
the hieroglyphics of Egypt ; it furnished the key by the 
aid of which Col. Rawlinson, Dr. Hincks, and other scholars 
have unlocked the depositories of Assyrian and Babylonian 
lore, and deciphered their ancient records. The coincidence 
of their independent investigations, joined to the internal 



402 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

evidence of truth which the translations bear, places beyond 
question the general accuracy of the results at which they 
have arrived. 

A striking verification of the truth of the Bible has 
been furnished by these discoveries in the identification of 
Scripture names. 

In the tenth chapter of Genesis we read of the cities of 
44 Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar ; " 
" Calah and Resen ; " and in the eleventh chapter, " Ur 
of the Chaldees " is mentioned. After that period these 
cities almost entirely disappeared from the page of history — 
nothing was known of their story, their fate, or even their 
sites. Now, however, the bricks and stones that lay buried 
for near three thousand years beneath the mounds of Meso- 
potamia have found a tongue, and have not only told us 
where each of these cities stood, but have added interesting 
details of their history. 

The vast number of the inscriptions found will require a 
considerable length of time for their perfect elucidation ; 
yet very important corroboration of the historical facts of 
Scripture has already been obtained from them. 

In the Second Book of Kings, hi. 27, we read that the 
king of Moab, when he saw that the battle was too sore for 
him, and that he could not cut his way through the besieg- 
ing army, took his eldest son that should have reigned in 
his stead, and offered him for a burnt-offering upon the wall. 
And Grotefend has deciphered an inscription of Nebuchad- 
nezzar which contains the record of his offer to let his son 
be burned to death in order to ward off the afflictions of 
Babylon. Were not these, like the unconscious prophecy 
of Caiaphas, the blind groping -and groaning of a fallen race 
after the alone perfect sacrifice that could avail with God ? 

Upon the walls of the palace of Khorsabad, excavated by 
the French, are to be read the annals of the reign of Sargon, 
or Shalmaneser, both of which titles are given in the in- 



ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES. 403 

scriptions. In the first year of his reign, it is said, he came 
up against the city of Samaria (called Samarini), and the 
tribes of the country of Beth Homri (or Omri), being the 
name of the founder of Samaria. (1 Kings xvii. 16, seq.) 
He carried off into captivity in Assyria 27,280 families, and 
settled in their places colonists brought from Babylonia ; 
appointing prefects to administer the country, and imposing 
the same tribute which had been paid to former kings. 

In the second year of Shalmaneser's reign, he is stated 
to have subdued Libnah and Kahzitah (the Cadytis of He- 
rodotus), dependencies of Egypt ; and in the seventh year 
of his reign he received tribute direct from the king of that 
country, who is named Pirhu, probably for " Pharaoh," the 
title by which the kings of Egypt were known to the Jews 
and other Semitic nations. This punishment of the Egyp- 
tians by Sargon or Shalmaneser, is alluded to in the twen- 
tieth chapter of Isaiah. 

Among the other exploits of Shalmaneser found in his 
annals are, the conquest of Ashdod, also alluded to in Isaiah 
xxi. 1 ; and his reduction of the neighboring city of Jumnai, 
called Jabneh, or Jamneh, in the Bible. 

The entire annals of Shalmaneser have not yet been dis- 
covered ; but a tablet erected by him towards the close of 
his reign in the palace at INTimroud, in which he claims to 
be the conqueror of Judaea, Colonel Rawlinson thinks refers 
to the expedition in which, after a three years' siege of Sa- 
maria, he carried off the great body of the tribes of Israel, 
and which is commemorated in the Bible as having occur- 
red in the sixth year of Hezekiah. 

But yet more striking coincidences are found in the 
annals of the son of Shalmaneser, Sennacherib. He com- 
menced his career by subjugating the Babylonians under 
their king Merodach Baladan, who had also been the an- 
tagonist of his father. This is a confirmation of Scripture, 
but the most important points of agreement are found in 



404 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

the annals of his third year. Let us compare their disclosures 
with the Bible. In 2 Kings, chap, xviii., we read that Heze- 
kiah sent an embassy to Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, at 
Lachish, and from the subsequent statements we infer that 
Lachish was taken and destroyed. What say the inscrip- 
tions ? In the palace at Kouyunjik a beautiful and highly 
finished bas-relief has been found, representing the siege 
and capture by the Assyrians of a city of great extent and 
importance. The sculptures tell the whole story of the at- 
tack, the conquest, and the entire destruction of the enemy. 
The captives, as they appear in the bas-reliefs, have been 
stripped of their ornaments and fine raiment, are barefoot- 
ed and half clothed. But it is impossible to mistake the 
race to which they belong. They are Jews ; for the stamp 
is on the countenance as it is impressed on the features of 
their descendants at this very hour. The Assyrian sculp- 
tor has noted the characteristic lines, and drawn them with 
surprising truth. To what city they belong we likewise 
know, for above the figure of the king, who commands in 
person, it is declared, that Sennacherib the mighty king, the 
king of Assyria, sitting on the throne of judgment before 
the city of Lachish, gives permission for its slaughter. 

The inspired record says, that Sennacherib came up 
against the fenced cities of Judah and took them (2 Kings 
xviii. 13), and that when Hezekiah offered to purchase a 
peace, the invader exacted from him 300 talents of silver 
and 30 of gold. This, it will be borne in mind, was the 
sum originally demanded, not from all the towns, but from 
Hezekiah and Jerusalem alone. The writer does not go on 
to specify the sum which Hezekiah actually gave, but only 
that he gave all the silver which was found in the house of 
the Lord and in the rOyal treasury. He also " cut off all 
the gold from the doors of the temple of the Lord, and 
from the pillars which Hezekiah king of Judah overlaid," 
but nowhere does he tell us of the amount that was thus 



ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES. 405 

procured and given to the Assyrian. Scripture also in- 
forms us how Sennacherib took advantage of this submis- 
sive spirit of Hezekiah, and after repeated insulting mes- 
sages and threats, advanced to the destruction of Jerusalem. 
But Hezekiah, we are told, trusted in God, and in answer 
to his prayer the Lord slew 185,000 of the invaders in a 
single night, so that the king of Assyria returned to Nine- 
veh without inflicting further injury upon the holy city. 

Of the terrible blow which thus arrested his designs, we 
could scarcely expect to find any mention in the grandilo- 
quent annals of an Oriental monarch. But he says, accord- 
ing to the inscriptions, " Because Hezekiah king of Judah 
did not submit to my yoke, forty-six of his strong fenced 
cities and innumerable smaller towns which depended on 
them I took and plundered, but I left to him Jerusalem his 
capital city, and the inferior towns around it," — a very sig- 
nificant admission in view of the Scripture reason for his 
retreat, — " and because Hezekiah refused still to do me 
homage, I attacked and carried off the whole population, 
fixed and nomade, which dwelt around Jerusalem, with thirty 
talents of gold and eight hundred talents of silver, the treas- 
ures of Hezekiah's palace, besides his sons and his daugh- 
ters, and his male or female servants or slaves ; I returned to 
Nineveh, and I accounted their spoil for the tribute which 
he refused to pay me." The apparent discrepancy in the 
amount of silver here mentioned being a larger sum than 
that stated in the Bible, finds its ready explanation in the 
circumstance that, while the Bible merely states what was 
demanded of Hezekiah, the inscription states the whole 
amount carried off, which of course would include a great 
deal more. The amount of gold being the same in both ac- 
counts is an " historic coincidence," which Dr. Layard justly 
claims to be " one of the most remarkable coincidences of 
historic testimony on record." 

Another discovery connected with the history of Sen- 



406 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

nacherib is perhaps even more remarkable. In a passage 
in the southwest corner of the Kouyunjik palace, Dr. Lay- 
ard stumbled upon a large piece of fine clay, bearing the 
impression of seals, which there can be no doubt had been 
affixed, like modern official seals of wax, to documents 
written on leather or parchment. The writings themselves 
have of course decayed, but, curiously enough, the holes 
for the string by which the seal was fastened are still visi- 
ble ; and in some instances the ashes of string itself may be 
seen, together with the unmistakable marks of finger and 
thumb. Four of these seals are purely Egyptian. Two of 
them are impressions of a royal signet. " It is," says Dr. 
Layard, " one well known to Egyptian scholars as that of 
the second Sabaco, the Ethiopian, of the 25th dynasty. 
On the same piece of clay is impressed an Assyrian seal, 
with a device representing a priest ministering before the 
king, probably a royal signet." 

Of the mystery here involved, Scripture supplies the 
following solution. 

Hoshea, king of Israel, made a treaty with So, king of 
Egypt, to help him throw off the yoke of Shalmaneser, 
king of Assyria ; but the result was an Assyrian invasion and 
the first great captivity of the kingdom of Israel. This So, 
or Sabaco II., was succeeded by Tirhakah in Egypt, and 
Shalmaneser in Assyria by Sennacherib, and hostilities ex- 
isted during both reigns. (2 Kings xix. 9.) It would seem 
that, a peace having been concluded between the Egyptians 
and the Assyrians, the signets of the two kings thus found 
together were attached to the treaty, which was deposited 
among the archives of the kingdom. 

The document itself and the cord by which it was at- 
tached to the seal, have long since turned to dust ; but the 
seal, w r ith its double impress, though buried for ages, has 
come to light and is now in the British Museum. The two 
kings affixed their seals to a document which has perished 



ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES. 407 

like themselves ; but in their act the hand of the Most 
High affixed an additional seal to his Holy Word, which is 
true and abideth forever. 

The annals of Ezar-haddon, the son of Sennacherib, 
have also been found in a tolerably perfect state. They 
are written upon a cylinder now in the British Museum, 
and contain an account of a further deportation of Israel- 
ites from Palestine, and a further settlement of Babylonian 
colonists in their place. This statement affords an explana- 
tion of a passage in Ezra (iv. 2), in which the Samari- 
tans speak of Ezar-haddon as the king by whom they had 
been transplanted. 

Another corroboration of Scripture furnished by these 
discoveries, has reference to the account in Daniel (iv.) 
of Nebuchadnezzar driven from among men and dwelling 
for a season with the beasts of the field. An inscription 
now in the East India House at London, according to Col. 
Rawlinson, describes the various works of that monarch 
at Babylon and Borsippa. The enumeration is doubtless 
the counterpart of that expression, "Is not this great 
Babylon which I have built for the house of my king- 
dom, by the might of my power and for the honor of my 
majesty?" In the midst of the list occurs a remarkable 
passage which the decipherer could not but regard as the 
official version of that terrible calamity. 

Abruptly breaking off from the account of the archi- 
tectural decoration of Babylon, it denounces the Chaldean 
astrologers. It says " the king's heart was hardened 
against them. He would grant no benefactions for relig- 
ious purposes. He intermitted the worship of Merodach, 
and put an end to the sacrifice of victims. He labored 
under the effects of enchantment." There is much more 
that is obscure in this episode, and at its close the archi- 
tectural narrative is abruptly resumed. But how much 
clearer a narrative of that awful visitation could we expect 
from Nebuchadnezzar ? 



408 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

The more light that is thrown from researches in these 
monumental records upon the historic statements of Scrip- 
ture, the more authentic and matter-of-fact are they made 
to appear. It is impossible to exaggerate the value of the 
mine thus opened to the biblical student. " Perhaps the 
time may come," says Mr. Rawlinson, " when through the 
recovery of the complete annals of Egypt, Assyria and 
Babylon, we may obtain for the whole of the Sacred History 
that sort of illustration, which is now confined to certain 
portions of it. God, who disposes all things ' after the 
counsel of his own will,' and who has given to the present 
age such treasures of long buried knowledge, may have 
yet greater things in store for us, to be brought to light 
at His own good time." 

In the utter ruin and desolation which have overtaken 
Nineveh and Babylon, we have additional evidence that 
the word of the Lord is truth. The calcined alabaster 
and charred cedar of the Assyrian palaces (Khorsabad 
and Nimroud) bear witness that the prophetic denuncia- 
tion against them was fulfilled to the very letter — that not 
only the flooding river and the destroying sword, but " the 
devouring fire " was made an instrument whereby " the re- 
joicing city that dwelt carelessly was made a desolation, a 
place for beasts to lie down." " She is empty and void and 
waste." (Nahum ii. 9, 10.) "1ST either Botta nor Layard 
found any of that store of silver and gold and 'pleasant 
furniture » which the palaces contained ; scarcely anything, 
even of bronze, escaped the spoiler, but he unconsciously 
left what is still more valuable ; for to the falling in of the 
roofs of the buildings, by his setting fire to the columns and 
beams that supported them, and his subsequent destruction 
of the walls, we are indebted for the extraordinary preser- 
vation of the sculptures." A like testimony to the " sure 
word of prophecy " comes from the shapeless heaps of rub- 
bish which mark the site where once stood ^the lady of 



ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES. 409 

kingdoms," " the glory of the Chaldees' excellency." In 
her fate the seemingly opposite declarations of the prophet 
Jeremiah (li. 42, 43) have both been exactly accomplished. 
" The sea is come upon Babylon," while she is also " a 
desolation, a dry land, and a wilderness." "From the 
summit of the Birs Nmirod," says Dr. Layard, " I gazed 
over a vast marsh, for Babylon is made ' a possession for 
the bittern and pools of water.' In the midst of the swamps 
could be faintly distinguished the mat huts of the Kazail, 
forming villages on the small islands. The green morass 
was spotted with herds of the black buffalo. Light boats 
were skimming to and fro over the shallow water." 

It is remarkable that in the region around these fallen 
seats of ruined empire, as in the case of Syria, the same 
unchanging frame-work of oriental life, its manners and 
customs, still exists, as when the Bible was written. There 
are still the lodges in the cucumber gardens which Isaiah 
describes ; the oxen still tread out the corn ; the vessels 
of bulrushes may still be seen ; and the wild asses of the 
desert so poetically alluded to by Job, still watch the trav- 
eller from the distance, pause for him to draw near, and 
then gallop away to the shadowy horizon. The hot, stifling 
breath of the easterly wind or sherki, from which Jonah so 
grievously suffered, is still found singularly relaxing and 
dispiriting. Though three thousand years have passed 
away, the very scenes of the Old Testament are here faith- 
fully reproduced, while, as if to confound the folly of modern 
scepticism, the famous capitals which were the seats of 
mighty kings, " when Egypt with Assyria strove in wealth 
and luxury," have been summoned from their graves. 
" The stone hath cried out of the wall, and the beam out 
of the timber hath answered it." 



18 



CHAPTER XII. 

AKCHJEOLOGICAL DISCOVEKIES — NEW TESTAMENT. 

But the aim of the rationalistic school is not merely to 
destroy the historical character of the Old Tes'tament. In 
the hands of Strauss, as has been already noticed, and of 
writers who have followed him, the New Testament also 
has been idealized. The incarnation of our Lord, His de- 
scent from David, the circumstances of His nativity, His 
temptation, transfiguration, His most remarkable miracles, 
including those attested by all the Evangelists, — all become 
mere myths, and never possessed an historical existence. 
The fact of His death is accepted, but His resurrection is a 
mere vision due to the excited imagination of His followers. 
And that death — how different the view in which the ideolo- 
gists regard it, from that which brings heavenly peace and 
immortal hope to the soul of the believer ! " The blood 
of sprinkling, the Cross of Calvary, the pierced hands, the 
wounded side — these have vanished from their eyes ; they 
may suit inferior minds, incapable of supporting the clear 
atmosphere and unimpeded vision into which they think 
themselves to have entered." * They would have a Chris- 
tianity without Christ. 

Yet the internal evidence of the New Testament His- 
tory alone could extort from the infidel Rousseau such a 
confession as the following : " If this be a fiction, the in- 
ventor is yet more wondrous than the hero of the narra- 
tive." If there were no other proof of the reality of the 
1 Bishop Wilberforce. 



ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES, 411 

Gospel history than the character which the four Evangel- 
ists have ascribed to Christ, that alone would furnish evi- 
dence beyond all cavil and doubt. 

" The brightness of the brightest names," says a great 
writer, " pales and wanes before the radiance which shines 
from the person of Christ. The scenes at the tomb of 
Lazarus, at the gate of Nain, in the happy family at 
Bethany, in the upper room, where He instituted the beau- 
tiful feast which should forever consecrate His memory, 
and bequeathed to His disciples the legacy of His love ; the 
scenes in the garden of Gethsemane, on the summit of Cal- 
vary and at the sepulchre ; the sweet remembrance of the 
patience with which He bore wrong, the gentleness with 
which He rebuked it, and the love with which He forgave 
it ; the thousand acts of benign condescension by which He 
well earned for Himself, from self-righteous pride and cen- 
sorious hypocrisy, the name of ' the friend of publicans and 
sinners ; ' these and a hundred things more which crowd 
those concise memorials of love and sorrow with such prod- 
igality of beauty and pathos, will still continue to charm 
and attract the soul of humanity, and on these the highest 
genius as well as the humblest mediocrity will love to 
dwell. These things lisjring infancy loves to hear on its 
mother's knee, and over them age, with its gray locks, 
bends in devoutest reverence. No ; before the infidel can 
prevent the influence of these compositions, he must get 
rid of the Gospels themselves, or he must supplant them by 
fictions far more wonderful ! Ah ! what bitter irony has 
involuntarily escaped me ! But if the last be impossible, at 
least the Gospels must cease to exist before Infidelity can 
succeed. Yes, before Infidels can prevent men from think- 
ing as they ever have done of Christ, they must blot out 
the gentle words with which, in the presence of austere 
hypocrisy, the Saviour welcomed that timid guilt that could 
only express its silent love in an agony of tears ; they must 



412 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

blot out the words addressed to the dying penitent, who, 
softened by the majestic patience of the mighty sufferer, 
detected at last the monarch under the veil of sorrow, and 
cast an imploring glance to be c remembered by Him when 
He came into His kingdom;' they must blot out the 
scenes in which the demoniacs, or the maniacs, if the infidel 
will, for it does not help him — sat listening at His feet and 
' in their right mind ; ' they must blot out the remembrance 
of the tears which He shed at the grave of Lazarus, not 
surely for him whom He was about to raise, but in pure 
sympathy with the sorrows of humanity, for the myriad 
myriads of desolate mourners, who could not with Mary fly 
to Him and say, ' Lord, if thou hadst been here, my mother 
— brother — sister — had not died ! ' They must blot out 
the record of those miracles which charm us not only as 
the proofs of His mission and guarantees of the truth of 
His doctrine, but as they illustrate the benevolence of His 
character, and are types of the spiritual cures His Gospel 
can yet perform; they must blot out the scenes of the sep- 
ulchre, where love and veneration lingered, and saw what 
has never been before, but shall henceforth be seen till the 
end of time, — the tomb itself irradiated with angelic forms 
and bright with the presence of Him ' who brought life and 
immortality to light ; ' they must blot out the scenes where 
deep and grateful love wept so passionately, and found 
them unbidden at her side, — type of ten thousand times ten 
thousand, who have ' sought the grave to weep there,' and 
found joy and consolation in Him ' whom though unseen 
they loved ; ' — they must blot out the discourses in which 
He took leave of His disciples, the majestic accents of 
which have filled so many departing souls with patience and 
with triumph; they must blot out the yet sublimer words 
in which He declares Himself c the Resurrection and the 
Life' — words which have led so many millions more to 
breathe out their spirits with child-like trust, and to be- 



ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES. 413 

lieve, as the gate of death closed behind them, they would 
see Him who is invested with ' the keys of the invisible 
world,' ' who opens and no man shuts, who shuts and no 
man opens,' letting in through the portal which leads to 
immortality ' the radiance of the skies ; ' they must blot out, 
they must destroy these and a thousand other such things, 
before they can prevent Him from having the pre-eminence 
who loved, because He loved us, to call Himself the ' Son 
of Man,' though angels called Him the 'Son of God.' " 1 

If all this be mythical, whence, let us ask, did the disci- 
ples of Christ draw the conception of the character of their 
Master ? " It is a character so transcendently original in 
its mere conception, so thoroughly and profoundly consist- 
ent in its working out, so remarkable for its combination 
of seemingly opposite traits — so full of a mingled majesty 
and loveliness, firmness and gentleness, candor and reserve, 
and so radically free from every morbid tendency or sen- 
timent, from fanaticism, pride, impetuosity, weakness, or 
one-sidedness of any kind, that, if not drawn from the life, 
it is the most stupendous and wonderful piece of art that 
was ever exhibited by the human mind. We may search 
the records of ancient and modern literature in vain to find 
anything like it." " It is related of a celebrated Grecian 
sculptor, that he searched all Greece with the view of 
modelling a perfect figure, and he borrowed here from the 
most beautiful a feature, and there from the most graceful 
a limb ; but after all the patchwork was apparent ; he could 
not so harmonize the different lineaments and members as 
to give congruity and symmetry to the whole ; and just so 
the attempt to construct a perfect character out of virtues 
borrowed from all the best of human kind has ever failed, 
because men cannot combine, and adjust, and harmonize 
the materials. Under these circumstances, in the face of 
difficulties so insuperable, how could it have entered into 
1 Defence of the Eclipse of Faith by Rev. Henry Rogers. 



414 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE, 

the minds of a few Jewish fishermen, without education, 
without advantages of refinement or taste — men brought 
up in prejudice and bigotry — how could it have entered 
into their minds to conceive the idea of drawing, or, con- 
ceiving it, what possibility was there of their being able to 
draw a faultless character ? And yet these fishermen of 
Galilee not only conceived, but realized the idea ; they 
painted one of whom we may say, * Behold the Lamb of 
God ; ' ' a lamb without blemish and without spot.' c Be- 
hold the man ! ' ' holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from 
sinners. ' " x Surely there must have been a living model 
from which they drew. Truly says Meander, " As man's 
limited intellect could never, without the aid of God's rev- 
elation of Himself to the spirit of man, have originated the 
idea of God, so the image of Christ could never have sprung 
from the consciousness of sinful humanity, but must be 
regarded as the reflection of the actual life of such a Christ. 
It is Christ's self revelation, made, through all generations, 
in the fragments of His history that remain, and in the 
workings of His Spirit which inspires these fragments, and 
enables us to recognize in them one complete whole." a 

What honest and candid mind can avoid the conviction 
that if the Gospel narrative be a fiction, then is all history 
a fiction ? 

But in its behalf also, "truth has sprung out of the 
earth." While the historic verity of the Old Testament 
has been vindicated by exhumed remains of long lost cities 
in the depths of Asia, fresh confirmations of the historic 
character of the New have been brought to light from be- 
neath the foundations of the old seven hilled city of the 
Caesars. 

So crowded is Rome with the treasured relics of the 
Past — so manifold the attractions of her temples, palaces 
and galleries of art — that few comparatively of those that 
i Eev. H. Stowell. 2 Life of Christ, p. 6. 



ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES. 415 

visit the Eternal City, bestow a thought upon the far more 
marvellous antiquities which lie beneath the streets they 
daily tread or under the majestic buildings whose objects 
of interest they eagerly explore. 

It has long been known that Rome is undermined by 
subterranean excavations, but very indefinite views pre- 
vailed as to their extent and the ancient memorials which 
they concealed. Recent explorations have ascertained that 
they form a network beneath Rome and the Campagna of 
nearly nine hundred miles in extent, their narrow chambers 
in some parts rising in stories one above another, and that 
they formed a refuge and burial place for Christians during 
the persecutions of the first three centuries. 

Evidence of the highest value in establishing the his- 
torical character of the religion of the New Testament, has 
been thence obtained. The following summary has been 
derived from the valuable Bampton lectures of Mr. Raw- 
linson, and it will be seen that the discoveries admit of no 
other inference than that in the first, second and third cen- 
turies, the facts of the New Testament were accepted as 
historical verities, and hence that there was no possible 
period when myths could have arisen. 

Following out in detail the evidence of the Catacombs, 
Mr. Rawlinson holds it to be in the first place conclusive as 
to the vast numbers of Christians in the early ages — ages 
when there was nothing to tempt men, and everything to 
disincline them, towards embracing the persecuted faith. 
The calculation that the Catacombs contain seven millions 
of graves would imply, for the four hundred years they 
were in use, an average population of from 500,000 to 
700,000, — an amount immeasurably beyond any estimate 
that has hitherto been made of Roman Christians at any 
portion of the period. Allowing the calculation of the 
number of graves to be somewhat exaggerated, and the 
proportion of deaths to the population under the circum- 



416 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

stances to be unusually large, still the evidence cf vast 
numbers which the Catacombs furnish cannot wholly mis- 
lead. They establish, beyond all reasonable doubt, that in 
spite of the general contempt and hatred, in spite of the 
constant ill usage to which they were exposed, and the oc- 
casional fiery trials which proved them, the Christians, as 
early as the second century, formed one of the chief ele- 
ments in the population of Rome. 

Secondly, he holds that the Catacombs afford conclusive 
proof of the dangers and sufferings to which the early 
Christians were exposed. Without assuming that the phi- 
als which have contained a red liquid, found in so many of 
the tombs, must have held blood, and that therefore they 
are certain signs of martyrdom, and without regarding the 
palm branch as an unmistakable evidence of the same, the 
Catacombs yet furnish evidence confirmatory of those 
writers who estimate at the highest the number of Chris- 
tians who suffered death in the great persecutions. The 
number of graves taken at the lowest, compared with the 
highest estimate of the Christian population that is at all 
probable, would give a proportion of deaths to population 
enormously above the average, — a result which at any rate 
lends support to those who assert that in the persecutions 
of Aurelius, Decius, Diocletian, and others, vast multitudes 
of Christians were massacred. Further, the word martyr 
is frequent upon the tombs ; and often, when it is absent, 
the inscription otherwise shows that the deceased lost his 
life on account of his religion, and opens to us, besides the 
individual buried, a long vista of similar sufferers — as when 
one of Aurelius' victims exclaims — " O unhappy times, in 
which amid our sacred rites and prayers, — in the very cav- 
erns, — we are not safe ! What is more wretched than our 
life? What more wretched than a death, when it is im- 
possible to obtain burial at the hands of friends or rela- 
tives? Still at the end they shine like stars in Heaven. 
A poor life is his who has lived in Christian times ! " 



ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES. 417 

Thirdly, he holds that the Catacombs furnish a certain 
amount of evidence with respect to the belief of the early 
Christians. The doctrine of the resurrection is implied or 
expressed on almost every tombstone which has been dis- 
covered. The Christian is not dead — he " rests " or 
" sleeps ; " he is not buried, but " deposited'''' in his grave ; 
and he is always at peace (in pace). The survivors do not 
mourn his loss despairingly, but express trust, resignation, 
moderate grief. The anchor, indicative of the Christian's 
sure and certain hope, is a common emblem ; and the phoe- 
nix and peacock are used as more speaking signs of the 
resurrection. The cross appears, though not the crucifix ; 
and other emblems are employed, as the dove and the 
cock, which indicate belief in the sacred narrative as we 
possess it. There are also a certain number of pictures in 
the Catacombs, and these represent ordinarily, historical 
scenes from the Old or New Testament, treated in a uni- 
form and conventional way, but clearly expressive of belief 
in the facts thus represented. The temptation of Eve, 
Moses striking the rock, Noah welcoming the return of 
the dove, Elijah ascending to heaven, Daniel among the 
lions, &c, are the favorite subjects from the Old Testa- 
ment ; while from the New Testament we find the adora- 
tion of the wise men, the interview with Herod, the bap- 
tism of Christ by John the Baptist, the healing of the 
paralytic, the turning of the w 7 ater into wine, the feeding 
of the five thousand, the raising of Lazarus, the Last Sup- 
per, and many other miracles and facts of Gospel History. 
These early artists never tire of repeating the type of 
" the Good Shepherd," and ofttimes the sow T er appears go- 
ing forth to sow, and the wise and foolish virgins with their 
lamps. Thus from these ancient and long hidden sepul- 
chral remains, we derive indisputable evidence that the his- 
toric belief of the early Church was identical with that of 
orthodox Christendom at the present day. 
18* 



418 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

Still more recently, a remarkable discovery has been 
made in Rome, affording another striking confirmation of 
the truth of Revelation. The following account of it is 
from an article in a late number of the Edinburgh Review 
on what are technically called the graffiti of Pompeii. 
These graffiti are the writings upon the street corners and 
places of public resort, which are now disclosed to the 
world, and throw great light upon the habits, tastes and 
manners of the ancients. The reviewer says : 

" Mention has been made more than once of graffiti 
lately discovered in other localities, and especially at Rome. 
Of these, the most important have been found in the sub- 
struction of the palace of the Caesars, recently excavated. 
It would carry us entirely beyond our allotted limits to de- 
scribe these in detail. Some of them, indeed, were dis- 
covered several years since, and are embodied in P. Ga- 
rucci's general collection. But there is one so exceedingly 
remarkable, and indeed of so deep and peculiar an interest, 
that it would be unpardonable to pass it over. 

" The apartment in which it was found is one of several 
(now subterranean) chambers on the Palatine, which, in the 
course of the many alterations and extensions of plan during 
the progress of the building of the palace, were dismantled 
and filled up in order to form substructions for a new edi- 
fice to be erected on a higher level. The light and air 
being effectually excluded by this process, the walls have 
remained to this day in a state of preservation little inferior 
to that of the buildings of Pompeii. The particular apart- 
ment in question having been opened in December, 1856, 
some traces of Greek characters were observed upon the 
wall; and, on a fuller examination by P. Garucci, who was 
attracted to the spot by the news of the discovery, these 
characters proved to be an explanatory legend written be- 
neath a rude sketch upon the wall, in which P. Garucci at 
once recognized a pagan caricature of the crucifixion of 



ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES. 419 

our Lord, and of the Christians' worship of their crucified 
God. This blasphemous sketch represents a figure with 
arm uplifted and outstretched (as if in the act of kissing 
the hand, a recognized attitude of worship or adoration), 
turned towards a cross, upon which is suspended a human 
figure with the head of a horse, or perhaps of an onager, 
or wild ass. 

" If any doubt can be entertained as to the purport of 
this sketch, it would be dispelled by the legend under- 
neath : 

'Alexaminus Worships God. 1 

"Who this Alexaminus may have been, and what may 
have been the special occasion (if, indeed, there were 
any) of this rude caricature, it is of course impossible now 
to conjecture. From the name it may be inferred that, 
like a large proportion of the Christians of Rome in the 
early centuries, he was a Greek, and perhaps a slave. But 
whatever may be said as to the individual on whom it was 
meant to be a satire, the singular graffito, thus unexpect- 
edly brought to light after so many centuries, is at once a 
most interesting illustration of the struggle between the 
Christianity of that early age and its yet powerful and con- 
temptuous rival, and a literal verification of one of the 
most striking passages in the 'Apology' of Tertullian. 
It is impossible to doubt that this blasphemous caricature 
is, in one of its forms, the actual reality to which Tertullian 
alludes. It is not alone that this father defends himself 
and his fellow Christians from the general charge of having 
an ass's head as their God, and that he retorts upon the 
pagans themselves their charge against the Christians of 
4 being superstitious respecting the cross,' by showing that 
the . pagans also worshipped the cross when they erected 
trophies, or took the military oaths upon their standards; 
he describes something closely resembling the very picture 



420 TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 

which we have here before us in this rude graffito, as a car- 
icature of the Christian worship which was then popular 
among the pagan calumniators. 

"We forbear to touch the higher associations which 
this strange discovery presses upon the mind. But even 
as a purely historical monument, the most unimaginative 
reader will regard it with the deepest interest. It opens to 
us with a distinctness which no written record could sup- 
ply, a glimpse into those dark days of the infant Church, 
while her divine founder was still ' a folly to the Gentile,' 
and while it was still possible to present him to the pop- 
ular mind of paganism under the hideous type of folly 
which is here depicted in all its revolting coarseness." 

Our proposed comparison of the discoveries of science 
and the results of historic research and inquiry with the 
statements of the Bible, has here reached its termination ; 
and we trust it has been shown that the Bible has stood 
every test which the refined scepticism of the present age 
has brought against it — the closer its claims have been 
scrutinized, the more triumphant has been its vindication. 
Did infidelity aspire to make its home among the stars ? 
The glorious orbs of heaven have uttered solemn harmo- 
nies to redemption's anthem. Driven from thence, did it 
seek to erect a fortress down in the recesses of the earth ? 
The rocks have uttered their testimony that the Author of 
creation and of revelation must be the same. Did it then 
strive to build up an array of proof that mankind was not 
a race of one blood and one brotherhood ? Physiology 
has uttered her assent to the declaration of Scripture that 
" God has made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell 
upon the face of the earth," while other sciences have 
yielded a confirmatory testimony. The long successions 
of Oriental dynasties — the calculations of eclipses and 
planetary conjunctions — the Egyptian Zodiacs — with which 
it was sought to overthrow the Mosaic account of the 



ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES. 421 

world's duration, when examined by the light of true sci- 
ence, vanished into air, or rather went to confirm the Scrip- 
ture narrative. And other objections with which it has 
been sought to impugn its credibility, have been found to 
supply internal evidence of its truth. And when a new 
school of philosophic scoffers has risen, who would treat 
the histories of the Bible as fables and its narratives of 
miraculous occurrences as myths, a species of evidence has 
been brought to light, precisely adapted to meet the emer- 
gency. Accomplished travellers have traversed to and fro 
through the lands of the East, and have returned to tell us 
that the Bible is, as it were, written upon the scenes which 
they have visited. The key to the Coptic tablets has been 
discovered, and across the gulf of forty centuries, the in- 
scriptions have been read. The gates of Mount Seir have 
opened to disclose the rock-built palaces of Edoni. The 
old cities of Bashan and Moab have been found still stand- 
ing in massive greatness almost as they were in the days of 
Moses and Joshua. The mysterious mounds by the Tigris 
and Euphrates have been explored, and the old palaces of 
Assyrian and Chaldean monarchs have revealed their mag- 
nificence and grandeur. All there are like witnesses sum- 
moned from the grave. Their evidence is contemporane- 
ous with the Scriptures, and it cannot be gainsayed or dis- 
puted. And what is their testimony? Wherever the 
same points are touched, it confirms the statements of the 
sacred records. It is thus found to the confusion of the 
infidel that if miracles are not now wrought to attest 
the truth of revelation, yet illustrations and evidences mar- 
vellous and manifold are laid up in the earth around him, 
and are brought forth at the moment of exigency, to vin- 
dicate the divinity of the Bible and to shed new beauty 
upon its hallowed pages. 



APPENDIX. 

THE AUTHENTICITY AND GENUINENESS OF THE SACEED 
WEITINGS. 

Were the books of Holy Scripture the productions of 
the writers whose names they bear, and have they come 
down to us in a genuine and unadulterated form ? 

In the preceding pages, whose particular object it has 
been to vindicate the truth and authority of the Bible as a 
revelation from God, the affirmative of this question is 
necessarily assumed and implied. Its demonstration has 
occupied the labors of numerous scholars of the highest' 
eminence, who. have unanswerably shown that the authen- 
ticity and genuineness of the inspired oracles are sustained 
by a force and accumulation of evidence to which neither 
the Commentaries of Caesar, the iEneid of Virgil, nor any 
of the classical writings of antiquity can even approach. 

As this is, however, a fundamental point, and many 
readers are probably unacquainted with the facts and argu- 
ments by which the conclusion is reached, it is deemed 
proper to subjoin a brief sketch of the grounds upon which 
the learned consider the question as set at rest. 

We will first inquire how we are to satisfy ourselves 
that we now possess the canonical writings of the Old Tes- 
tament ? 

Canon is a Greek word signifying rule, and is used figu- 
ratively of that which governs or determines. As the Sa- 
cred Scriptures were at a very early period carefully distin- 



AUTHENTICITY AND GENUINENESS OF THE BIBLE. 423 

guishcd from all human writings, and as they formed the 
only rule of faith and practice which Christians regarded 
as authoritative or safe, they were soon designated as the 
" canon," i. e., the rule of God. 

As to the present canon of the Old Testament, it is gen- 
erally admitted that its formation is to be traced to Ezra 
and the prophets who returned with him to Babylon. This 
is the uniform tradition of the Jews, and it is strengthened 
by the fact that there were no prophets after Malachi, who 
was a contemporary of Ezra, and consequently no authority 
sufficient for the purpose. Josephus, moreover, distinctly 
states that after the time of Artaxerxes (the age of Ezra 
and Xehemiah), there had been no addition to the Jewish 
sacred books. " Fact has shown what confidence we place 
in our writings, for although so many ages have passed 
away, no one has dared to add to them, nor to take away 
any thing from them, or to make alterations." 

To this collection of the inspired oracles, which were ar- 
ranged in three classes, the Law, the Prophets, and the Sa- 
cred Writings, our Lord Jesus Christ and his apostles gave 
their explicit sanction. Our Saviour frequently reproved 
the Jews for disobeying and misinterpreting the sacred 
Scriptures, and adding their traditions thereto, but he never 
charged them with unfaithfulness or negligence in preserv- 
ing the sacred books. On the contrary, he often speaks of 
the Scriptures (that is, of the Scriptures as then known) as 
an infallible rule which could not be broken, and from which 
not one jot or tittle should pass till all should be fulfilled. 
To these Scriptures he ever refers as the unerring truth of 
God. And so also the apostle Paul, alluding chiefly, if not 
wholly, to the Old Testament writings, says " all Scripture 
is given by inspiration of God," and again he speaks of them 
as " the oracles of God" and as " the teachings of the Holy 
Ghost." The testimony of the other apostles is equally 
plain and explicit. One important point, then, is establish- 



424 APPENDIX. 

ed with the utmost certainty : that the volume of Scripture 
which existed in the time of Christ and his apostles was un- 
corrupted by the presence of any spurious works, and that 
the whole of it was expressly declared by them to be in- 
inspired and infallible. The question, then, becomes a mere 
question of fact ; for if we can ascertain what were the par- 
ticular books which were at that time received and known 
by the Jews as the Scriptures, we shall know with absolute 
certainty what books constitute the inspired canon of the 
Old Testament. If Christ and his apostles had given us 
the names of every one of the books then known as parts 
of the Old Testament, the question would at once be set- 
tled. But this they have not done. They have, indeed, 
distinctly quoted from several of these books, and so far 
the evidence is complete. And, more than this, they have 
recognized as inspired all the works known to the Jews of 
their day as " the Scriptures ; " and still more particularly 
as " the Law," " the Prophets," and " the Psalms." But all 
this, even, is not of itself sufficient to inform us whether the 
Old Testament then contained precisely the same books 
that it now does, and no others ; so that the question still 
remains, What were the books which all the Jews of that 
day received as included in the Scriptures in the threefold 
division which has just been mentioned ? To ascertain this 
point, we should naturally resort, if possible, to the testi- 
mony of some Jew then living, just as, if we held any doubts 
of the orations of Cicero being rightly ascribed to him, we 
should examine the pages of contemporaneous history. In 
Josephus, the celebrated Jewish historian, who was con- 
temporary with the apostles, we have the witness, and find 
the very information which we desire. He does not, in- 
deed, name all the books of the Old Testament, but then he 
numbers and otherwise so accurately describes them, that 
there is no room for mistake. " We have," says he, in his 
first book against Apion, " only twenty-two books which 



AUTHENTICITY AND GENUINENESS OF THE BIBLE. 425 

we hold to be of divine origin, and which we are bound to 
believe. Of these, five are the books of Moses, which treat 
of the creation of the world, &c. From the death of Moses 
to the reign of Artaxerxes, king of Persia, the Prophets 
who succeeded Moses have written in thirteen books, and 
the remaining four books contain divine poems or hymns to 
God, and moral precepts or rules of life for men." Accord- 
ing to the method of arrangement formerly in use among 
the Jews, the twenty-two books mentioned by Josephus, 
though numbered differently, are, in fact, precisely the 
same with those of the Old Testament as now received by 
us. Shakspeare or Blackstone's Commentaries is still the 
same work whether in one or in four volumes ; and so is the 
Old Testament whether arranged in twenty-two or in thirty- 
nine divisions. The whole argument, in a word, then, is this : 
Jesus Christ and His Apostles expressly and repeatedly de- 
clared that the Scriptures, as received by the Jews at the 
time when they lived, were inspired. Jewish history writ- 
ten at that very time informs us what books were then con- 
tained in the Jewish Scriptures. These books, though dif- 
ferently arranged and numbered, are found, on examination, 
to be the very same which are contained in our English ver- 
sion of the Old Testament. Therefore, the Old Testament, 
as received by us, is expressly sanctioned by Jesus Christ 
and His Apostles, its canonical authority is established, and 
to every book of it we . may safely trust as the inspired 
words of the Holy Spirit. 

To the Christian believer, this testimony of the Saviour 
and His Apostles is abundantly sufficient. It is necessary, 
however, to use another method to parry the assault of the 
infidel, who asserts that these sacred books are forgeries, 
and that their author or authors surreptitiously palmed 
them off upon the ignorance and credulity of the Jew T ish 
people. 

This charge is conclusively met and its absurdity de- 



426 APPENDIX. 

monstrated, in the following admirable argument condensed 
from the Evidences of Dr. Gregory. 

" No forgery was ever yet so complete as wholly to 
escape detection for any great length of time. In fictitious 
works, even in those in which most particularities abound, 
there is a frequent want of proportion and coherency of 
parts, so as to prove a deficiency of invention in the group- 
ing and consistency of the events. There must certainly 
always be some truth, where many particularities respect- 
ing time, place, and persons are related, and in which con- 
sistency is observable ; but where all or most of these are 
absent, the inference is, that the account or history must 
necessarily be far from authentic, and, of course, fictitious 
or a narrative combined of fact and fiction. Writers of 
avowed fiction, however true to nature, are frequently 
careless respecting such consistency ; but writers, or rather 
forgers, of what they wish to pass in the world as authentic, 
because anxious about consistency, are careful to avoid 
striking particularities, since critical readers might easily 
find important errors and inconsistencies not obvious to 
every eye. And further, when it is considered, what an 
amount of minute knowledge is required in writing history, 
to furnish particularities — so as to be accurate in giving 
names of persons, in stating times and describing places 
and events — it will appear evident, that no mere forger or 
writer of superficial narrative, to suit a certain base pur- 
pose, could create them and make a show of consistency in 
every part, so as to impose such history upon the intelligent 
world as genuine and authentic. But, on the other hand, 
if the writers themselves had been, though in different 
times and places, concerned in the events narrated, or eye- 
witnesses of the events as they occurred, or stated clearly, 
simply, and impartially the stories they had received from 
truthful testimony, the particularities related would bear 
the impression of consistency and truth. And, again, if 
forgers, hazarding the setting forth of such particularities 



AUTHENTICITY AND GENUINENESS OF THE BIBLE. 427 

in their narratives, were certain of the fraud being detected 
by common readers thousands of years after their death, 
they must, d fortiori, have been certain of their fraud being 
detected and exposed when first published by the persons 
who, like the forgers themselves, had been concerned in the 
transactions and witnesses of the events recorded. When, 
therefore, such witnesses, and these to the number of thou- 
sands, concerned in the events, could, when the histories 
were written and preserved among the archives of their 
race as of all but infinite importance, detect neither fraud, 
misstatement nor imposture ; and when, moreover, the in- 
ternal evidence has been, and is such, that no subsequent 
critics or commentators could, upon comparison of books, 
or dates, or circumstances, wring one single error or con- 
tradiction from their pages, the fact of their authenticity 
and genuineness becomes still more striking and incontro- 
vertible. 

" Apply these criteria to the books of the Old Testa- 
ment and the result will be demonstrative of their authen- 
ticity. Not only do they contain the names of the persons 
who wrote the various books, known in their own various 
ages as the authors of them, and recognized as the writers 
of undoubted truths, but they abound in those particulari- 
ties with regard to times, places, and events of the most 
note and importance in relation to the human race, without 
which no history can be authentic and genuine. Look to 
the particular account of the creation and the fall, — of the 
deluge, the building of Babel, the dispersion of mankind, 
and the short duration of human life after the deluge ; — 
look to the accounts of the successive patriarchs, the inter- 
esting history of Joseph in Egypt, the sojourn in that conn- 
try of the Israelites, and their escape from the tyranny of 
Pharaoh, and their long journeyings in the wilderness, 
marked by such marvellous events, before they entered the 
promised land ; — look to the history of the Israelites after- 
wards, their various offences against God, both in the times 



428 APPENDIX. 

of the Judges and the Kings, and their as signal punish- 
ment and subsequent captivity in Babylon : and in connec- 
tion with all these events, look at the accuracy of geograph- 
ical detail, which no geographer, ancient or modern, from 
Strabo down to the present day, could prove erroneous ; 
and consider also that the Jewish historians and prophets 
were not depicting the manners and customs, or chronicling 
the deeds of Gentile nations, but of their own peculiar 
people, — and. then mark the impartiality of their narratives 
— the simplicity with which they record their iniquities 
against God, as well as their obedience to His laws, and the 
manner in which they state the nature and extent of the 
awarded punishments ; — look to all those features and con- 
sider whether any profane histories, such as those of Thu- 
cydides or Tacitus in ancient, or of Clarendon or Hume in 
modern times, all received as genuine, and in most part 
authentic, show such internal evidences of authenticity, and 
then say, after all this, whether or not the sacred Scriptures 
can be forgeries ! 

" Forgeries are never committed without some particu- 
lar motive, or without some probability of success. But 
the sacred writers could not be influenced by any such 
motives as those of literary vanity, pecuniary gain, or a 
desire through their histories to perpetuate national glory ; 
and when writing for their own people accounts of them- 
selves, and the events distinguishing them as a people 
chosen of God for a particular purpose, they must be 
afflicted with no common blindness, who can imagine them 
to have written falsehoods. As the characters of all authors 
are some guarantee for the honesty or otherwise of their 
productions, it cannot be denied by even the enemies of 
Scripture, that the books of both the Old and New Testa- 
ments are written in the highest style of morality, and that, 
hence, the writers themselves were men of the highest 
characters. Otherwise their books would not have been 



AUTHENTICITY AND GENUINENESS OF THE BIBLE. 429 

treasured by the people, and been regarded for so many- 
centuries as the archives of their history and of their laws, 
rites and ceremonies, and revered with a degree of inalien- 
able affection, which persecutions, proscriptions, and mas- 
sacres could not quench, nor even weaken. And, further, 
as those writers or books possess such diversity of style, as 
to prove them the work of no single Jew, or of any one 
age, and as allusions are frequently made to each other by 
successive writers, it would inevitably follow, if the books 
were forgeries, that there must have existed a number of 
impostors in successive ages from Moses to Malachi, a 
period of one thousand and fifty-four years, all animated by 
one spirit, as if the living and dead were in actual collusion, 
all writing in harmony and having reference, more or less, 
to one great and absorbing event, seen prophetically in the 
far distance, and yet all proclaiming the iniquity of their 
own people, and threatening them with, and warning them 
of, impending woes and judgments. Now all this is absurd 
and incredible. 

"But when could such forgeries have been written and 
imposed upon the Jews as genuine and authentic histories 
and prophecies ? Before or after the Babylonish captivity ? 
Not assuredly before it, because the imposition thus prac- 
tised upon the minds and belief of a whole people would 
have been detected and exposed ; and as assuredly not after 
it, as the Hebrew then ceased to be a spoken language. 
And as no Hebrew grammar existed till many ages after- 
wards, and it is difficult to write in a dead language, even 
with the help of a grammar, it is next to impossible to 
write without one. It is therefore plain that all the books 
of the Old Testament must have been written prior to the 
Babylonian captivity ; and as, from internal evidence, they 
could not all have been written in the same age, and by 
one or more authors, some of them must have been written 
long previous to the others, and hence, if they be not gen- 



: 



430 APPENDIX. 

nine and authentic, we are again led back to a collusion of 
impostors living centuries apart, all resolved upon deceiv- 
ing a whole people, who openly and willingly submitted to, 
and professedly believed in, the inconceivable deception ; 
and who also transmitted it through their successors, 
amidst trying and singular events, to the present day. 

" Admitting that some changes had necessarily taken 
place in the language during the thousand and fifty-four 
years between Moses and Malachi, the narrative styles of 
the various writers still retained the majesty and simplicity 
suitable for the people for whose more immediate informa- 
tion they wrote, and to the circumstances of the authors 
themselves. And this simple naturalness is alone sufficient 
to disprove the assertion of their being forged. The dra- 
matic and sublime parts of Job, and much of the prophetic 
writings, may be less simple, and more glowing and figura- 
tive in style ; but still this was natural in looking along the 
vistas of futurity, and deciphering in figures the threaten- 
ings of woe upon peoples and empires, and the promises of 
grace and peace to the followers of the ' Man of Sor- 
rows;' whereas, a style strained and affected in even the 
loftiest narrative, proves that the writer is more anxious to 
display himself than his subject. But the Scripture narra- 
tives are models of simplicity and perfection. Nothing is 
affected — nothing is strained ; the majesty of the subject is 
seen, and great truths are stated, and events narrated, 
with a force and clearness, often with a beauty and pathos 
which no other writers ever rivalled, whilst the writers 
themselves are personally, as authors, hid behind the veil." l 

It is because they will not stand such tests as the above 
that the books termed the Apocrypha are by Protestants 
rejected from the sacred canon. The term Apocrypha is 
Greek, signifying hidden or concealed^ and is applied to 
those books whose origin is unknown, or the authority of 
which is either doubtful or absolutely denied. The books 
1 McBurnie's Prize Essay on Infidelity. 



AUTHENTICITY AND GENUINENESS OF THE BIBLE. 431 

in question were, most of them, the work of Jews in the 
century before Christ. Some of them, as Tobit, Susannah, 
and (as it is called by Jerome) the fable of Bel and the 
Dragon, &c, are religious romances. Some of the books 
contain false doctrine, as praying for the dead, praising 
suicide, <fec. ; and some are distinguished by anachronisms. 
Some of them contain much that is instructive, and have 
been held in high esteem by not a few of the greatest men 
in the Christian Church. But it is certain that they have 
never been considered as on a level with the Hebrew Bi- 
ble. They never belonged to it. The Jews never ac- 
knowledged them as inspired writings. Philo and Jo- 
sephus never mention them ; the New Testament is alto- 
gether silent about them — never once quoting them. At 
length in the sixteenth century, the Council of Trent ven- 
tured to decree that they should be regarded as an integral 
part of the Word of God. By those, however, who do not 
accept the dogma of Papal infallibility, the judgment of 
St. Augustine will be regarded as carrying far more weight. 
" Let us," he says, " lay aside those books which have been 
called apocryphal, because their authors were not known 
to our fathers, who have by a constant and certain succes- 
sion transmitted down to us the certainty and truth of the 
Holy Scriptures. Though some things in these apocryphal 
books are true, yet as there are in them multitudes of oth- 
ers which are false, they are of no authority." 

" It is an important fact," says Dr. Alexander, " that a 
short time after the canon of the Old Testament was closed, 
a translation was made of the whole of the books into the 
Greek language. This translation was made at Alexandria, 
in Egypt, at the request, it is said, of Ptolemy Philadel- 
phus, king of Egypt, that he might have a copy of these 
sacred books in the famous library which he was engaged 
in collecting. It is called The Septuagint, from its being 
made, according to the accounts which have been handed 



432 APPENDIX. 

down, by seventy, or rather seventy-two, men; six from 
each of the tribes of Israel. So many fabulous things have 
been reported concerning this version, that it is very dim- 
cult to ascertain the precise truth. But it is manifest from 
internal evidence, that it was not the work of one hand, 
nor, probably, of one set of translators ; for, while some 
books are rendered with great accuracy, and in a very lit- 
eral manner, others are translated with little care, and the 
meaning of the original is very imperfectly given. 

" The probability is, that the Pentateuch was first trans- 
lated, and the other books were added from time to time, 
by different hands ; but when the work was once begun, it 
is not likely that it would be long before the whole was 
completed. 

" Now this Greek version contains all the books which 
are found in our canonical Hebrew Bibles. It is a good 
witness, therefore, to prove that allthese books were in the 
canon when this version was made. 

" There is, moreover, a distinct and remarkable testi- 
mony to the antiquity of the five books of Moses in the 
Samaritan Pentateuch, which has existed in a form entirely 
separate from the Jewish copies, and a character totally 
different from that in which the Hebrew Bible has been 
for many ages written. It has also been preserved and 
handed down to us by a people who have ever been hostile 
to the Jews. This Pentateuch has, without doubt, been 
transmitted through a separate channel, ever since the ten 
tribes of Israel were carried captive. It furnishes authen- 
tic testimony to the great antiquity of the books of Moses, 
and shows how little they have been corrupted, during the 
lapse of nearly three thousand years." 

Overwhelming as is the train of evidences of the au- 
thenticity of the books of the Old Testament, the testimony 
in behalf of those of the New Testament is even yet more 
cogent and irresistible. 



AUTHENTICITY AND GENUINENESS OF THE BIBLE. 433 

We have, it is true, no precise information as to when 
the New Testament canon was completed. There does 
not appear to have been any particular time or place in 
which the writings were collected and authenticated. From 
the manner in which they were at first circulated, some of 
them were necessarily longer of reaching certain places 
than others. Owing to this circumstance, and to that of a 
few of the books being addressed to individual believers, 
or to their not having the name of their writers affixed, or 
the designation of the apostle added, a doubt for a time 
existed among some respecting the genuineness of the 
Epistle to the Hebrews, the Epistle of James, the second 
Epistle of Peter, the second and third Epistles of John, 
the Epistle of Jude, and the Book of Revelation. These, 
however, though not universally, were generally acknowl- 
edged ; while all the other books of the New Testament 
were without dispute received from the beginning. The 
hesitation with which the claims of a portion of them were 
regarded in some places of the Christian world, is of itself 
a strong presumption that the universal and cordial recep- 
tion which was given to all the other books of the New 
Testament, proceeded upon clear, incontestable evidence 
of their authenticity. 

At length these books, which had not at first been ad- 
mitted, were, like the rest, universally received, not by the 
votes of a council, as is sometimes asserted, but after delib- 
erate and free inquiry by many separate churches, under 
the superintending providence of God, in different parts of 
the world. And it is certain, that though several Apocry- 
phal writings were published under the name of Jesus 
Christ and His Apostles, most of which have perished, 
though some are still extant, yet no other books besides 
those which at present compose the volume of the New 
Testament, were admitted by the churches. 

The arguments which sustain the authenticity of that 
19 



434 APPENDIX. 

volume may be thus briefly summed up. Its several por- 
tions are quoted as the productions of the writers whose 
names they bear, by Christian authors of the first century, 
several of whom had known and conversed with the Apos- 
tles and immediate disciples of Christ. They were uni- 
formly spoken of in terms expressive of the highest respect, 
as inspired compositions. They were publicly read and 
expounded in the religious assemblies of the early Chris- 
tians. They were in very early times collected into a dis- 
tinct volume, and distinguished by appropriate names and 
titles of respect. . Commentaries were anciently composed 
upon them, harmonies were formed out of them, and trans- 
lations of them were made into different languages. They 
were received, not only by orthodox Christians, but by 
heretics of various descriptions, and were appealed to as 
authorities in matters of doctrine and controversy. Even 
the early adversaries of Christianity, such as Julian and 
Porphyry, have never questioned the genuineness of the 
sacred books, but speak of the Gospels as the composition 
of the Evangelists. And formal catalogues of the Scrip- 
ture were formed by private individuals and by councils, 
from which it appears that the same books were then re- 
ceived which are at present acknowledged. In short, no 
evidence which the subject admits of is found wanting. 

The impossibility of the ISTew Testament being a forgery 
is thus forcibly demonstrated by Bishop Wilson. " The 
sacred books are either the productions of the Apostles 
and Evangelists, or they are a direct and bare-faced fabri- 
cation, composed by impostors of the apostolic or a succeed- 
ing age. ISTow, I affirm that it is morally impossible, from 
the circumstances of the case, that they could be false pro- 
ductions imposed upon the Christian Church. For, take 
what age you please, and tell me when such an attempt 
could have been made. 

" Could it have been made during the lives of the Apos- 



AUTHENTICITY AND GENUINENESS OF THE BIBLE. 435 

ties ? What ! twenty-seven books, the production of eight 
distinct authors, palmed upon the very converts of those 
authors, with whom they were in constant intercourse, 
during the very period of that intercourse ? The suppo- 
sition refutes itself. 

" But, could it have been in a subsequent age ? Cer- 
tainly not after the commencement of the third century, 
when the books were actually in circulation over the world, 
were read in the churches, transmitted by versions into 
new languages, and preserved as the most precious deposit 
in the Christian archives! Could false books have been 
imposed, under such circumstances, upon the wakeful minds 
of Christians, in every part of the world ; and imposed on 
them, not only as inspired writings, but as the works of the 
Apostles and Evangelists, which had been received by their 
immediate parents and forefathers, as their sacred books, 
and had been handed down to them from the Apostles, from 
age to age ? Incredible — absurd — morally impossible ! 
Ten thousand voices would instantly have cried out that 
they had never heard of such books previous to their pro- 
duction by the supposed impostor. 

" Then the only time when a forgery of such magnitude 
appears even possible, is between the death of the Apostles 
and the period of the universal diffusion of the books. But 
St. John lived till quite the close of the first century — his 
own disciple, Polycarp, till beyond the middle of the second 
— and Irenaeus, the disciple of Polycarp, to the commence- 
ment of the third ; when Tertullian and a host of witnesses 
put the supposition of forgery quite out -of the question. 
Can any one imagine, that during this brief period a daring 
falsification, such as we are considering, could have been 
made — a falsification which must at least have demanded a 
long series of ages — much obscurity — many favorable oppor- 
tunities, to have been attempted even as to a single book 
out of the twenty-seven, in a single community, out of the 



436 APPENDIX. 

thousands which overspread, according to all testimony, 
the Roman empire, by the beginning of the second century ! 

"But not only so. Christianity was planted in the 
midst of enemies and persecutors. Christianity raised its 
head amidst Judaism and heathen idolatry. Christianity 
was assaulted for three hundred years by a succession of 
violent and cruel and unjust persecutions. Christianity was 
never without some false disciples in its own bosom, watch- 
ful to seize every advantage. It was morally impossible 
that any fraud should have escaped, not only discovery, but 
that public exposure and disgrace from all parties, which at- 
tend on a detected imposition." 

Having ascertained to our satisfaction the authenticity 
of the books of the Old and lSTew Testaments, we proceed 
to inquire whether they have come down to us with a 
genuine and uncorrupted text ? 

The importance of this inquiry will be readily seen. 
For although it is proved that the sacred books proceeded 
at first from the prophets or apostles whose names they 
bear, it may still be said that they may have been so altered 
since that time as to convey to us very false information 
with regard to their contents. Granted that they may have 
had the infallible guidance of the Spirit of God ; yet if we 
have not the message as it was imparted to them, if in the 
course of time the Bible has been mutilated by the drop- 
ping out of precious words, wfcile others have been inter- 
polated, how can it command our homage or claim our con- 
fidence ? Like a harp with broken and missing chords, it 
has lost its power to charm. 

Still there is danger of misapprehension and unreason- 
able expectation upon this subject. It will not do to rest 
in the presumption that because God has given us a revela- 
tion, His providence would necessarily guard it from all in- 
jury, and cause it to be transmitted entire and uncorrupted 
to all coming generations. The analogy of nature does not 



AUTHENTICITY AND GENUINENESS OF THE BIBLE. 437 

support this presumption ; for the best blessings of Heaven 
are abused and perverted by the vices and negligences of 
those upon whom they are bestowed, and the faults, political 
or moral, of one generation, entail their evil consequences 
upon generations following. As to the matter in question, 
it is an undeniable fact that there are numerous various 
readings both in the Old and New Testaments, which have 
been occasioned by frequent transcription. The inspired 
autographs have long ago perished, and the most ancient 
copies to which we have access exhibit many textual varia- 
tions. No promise of infallibility was made to transcribers, 
and no pledge that the copy should be a perfect copy of 
the original. Hence that has befallen the Bible which is 
common to other books that have come down from an- 
tiquity. Many of the words and letters of the inspired 
pages are occasion of question and debate. 

When the fact of the various readings was first made 
known in the course of the last century, it was a subject 
of triumph to the enemies of the Christian faith and a 
cause of some apprehension to its friends. It led, however, 
to a most thorough investigation of the state of the sacred 
text, and the result of the untiring labors of numerous 
great scholars has vindicated the inspired oracles on this 
point also. It is now conceded that, though there are nu- 
merous various readings, yet they are all of an exceedingly 
unimportant character. Referring to this subject, it is said 
by the learned Dr. Adam Clarke " that all the omissions of 
the ancient manuscripts put together, would not counte- 
nance the omission of any essential doctrine of the Gospel, 
relative to faith and morals, beyond what may be found in 
the Complutensian or Elzevir editions." The Jews, it is 
well known, were most scrupulous in preserving entire the 
works of their inspired writers, and in preventing the intru* 
sion of literal errors into the copies which were from time 
to time transcribed. Among the means which they adopt- 



438 APPENDIX. 

ed to this end, was that of noting and recording the exact 
number of words, verses, points and accents, in each book. 
The duty of doing so was the province of the Jewish doc- 
tors or learned men, called Masorites. By these acute 
grammarians, all the verses of each book and of each sec- 
tion were numbered, and the amount placed at the end of 
each in numerical letters, or in some symbolical word form- 
ed out of them ; the middle verse of each book was also 
marked, and even the very letters were numbered ; and all 
this was done to preserve the text from any alteration by 
either fraud or negligence. 

What has been said of the integrity of the text of the 
Old Testament, applies equally to that of the New. Though 
it must be admitted that the New Testament text, by being 
more frequently transcribed than the Old, became liable to 
a greater proportion of various readings, originating from 
the mistakes of the transcribers, yet this very circumstance 
was likewise a sure protection against wilful perversion or 
corruption ; for in proportion as copies were multiplied, 
the difficulty of effecting a general corruption was in- 
creased. No such system as that of the Masorites was 
ever adopted to preserve the purity of the New Testament 
text, but there are not wanting ample means for ascertain- 
ing the true reading. More than three hundred and fifty 
ancient manuscript copies of the books of the New Testa- 
ment, written in different ages and countries, have come 
down to us. There are numerous ancient translations, 
some of which were made as early as the second century. 
And a third source of correction exists in the numberless 
quotations from the New Testament with which the works 
of the Christian fathers and other early writers abound. 
In all these sources of evidence there is a substantial agree- 
ment, proving beyond dispute that the words spoken by 
the Saviour, and those written by the Apostles and Evan- 
gelists, have come down to us unchanged. 



AUTHENTICITY AND GENUINENESS OF THE BIBLE. 439 

The arguments for the genuineness and authenticity of 
the Holy Scriptures require volumes in order fully to do 
them justice. They have been thus conclusively summed 
up by Isaac Taylor, in the last chapter of his work on the 
Transmission of Ancient Books : " In the number and an- 
tiquity of manuscripts ; in extent of early circulation ; in 
the importance attached to them by their possessors; in 
the respect paid to them by copyists of later ages ; in the 
various and conflicting sentiments of those who accepted 
the sacred writings as the rule of faith ; in the visible ef- 
fects of these books from age to age ; in the body of ref- 
erences and quotations ; in the number of early versions ; 
in the peculiar circumstances connected with the extinc- 
tion, as vernacular idioms, of the languages in which the 
originals were written ; in the means of comparison with 
spurious or rival compositions ; in the strength of the in- 
ference from the genuineness to the credibility of the 
books ; in all these points, the comparative weight of evi- 
dence in favor of the records of Christianity, is incontro- 
vertibly and immeasurably greater than that which is al- 
lowed, without a scruple, in the instance of the remains of 
profane antiquity." 



THE END. 




THE TEIUMPHS OF THE BIBLE, 

EI TIIE TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO ITS TB 
By Rev. HEXRY TULLIDGE. 1 vol. 12mo. $1 50. 



Extracts from Testimonials, etc. 



From, the Rt. Rev. Alokzo Potter, D.D., LL.D., Bishop of the Diocese, of 
Pennsylvania. 

The Ecv. Mr. Tullidge has written a work on Modern Unbelief and its objec- 
tions, with which, from a cursory examination, I have been favorably impressed, and 
which I think peculiarly calculated to arrest and multiply readers. It is spirited, 
forcible, and enlivened as well as graced by many quotations from the best writers. 
It seems to me fitted to command an extensive sale. 

Yours truly, 

Philadelphia, Sept. 24th, 1SC2. ALONZO POTTER. 

From the Rt. Rev. W. H. Odenheimer, D.D., Bishop of the Diocese of 
New Jersey. 

From an examination of the Rev. Mr. Tullidge's work, I am prepared to express 
my favorable opinion of its merits and of its adaptation to the wants of Biblical 
•scholars at the present time. 

Bcrlixgtox, N. J., Jan. 1SG3. W. H. ODENHEIMEE. 



From the Rev. S. H. Tyng, D.D., Rector of St. George's Church, New York. 
The Rev. Henry Tullidge, long and well known to me, has prepared a very com- 
pact and extended work on the Triumphs of the Bibie, &c, designed to illustrate 
the complete vindication of its historic truth from all the discoveries of modern in- 
vestigations. The scheme is laid out with skill, and from the superficial view I havo 
been able to take of it, connected with my knowledge of the ability of its author, I 
cannot doubt that the work will prove useful and desirable. 

St. George's Rectory. Jan. 7th, 1SC3. S. H. TYNG. 



From the Rev. Isaac Ferris, D.D., LL.D , Chancellor of the University of the 
City of New York. 

I cheerfully add my commendation of Mr. Tullidge's work to that of Dr. Tyng. 

ISAAC FERRIS. 

University or the Citt of New York, Jan. Oth, 1S63. 



From the Rev. William M. Exgles, D.D , Editor of the Presbyterian. 
Rev. axd dear Sir: 

I have examined the portion of the MS. which you left wi!h me on the Triumphs 
of the Bible, &c, and feel free in expressin? the. opinion, that both in its plan and 
execution, it is admirably adapted to be a popular and useful work, impressive in its 
argument and calculated to interest al : iksses of readers. I remain, 

Yours, very truly, WILLIAM M. EXGLE9. . 



From the Rev. Henry A. Boabdman. D.D., Pastor of the Presbyterian Church, 
Corner of Twelfth and Walnut Streets, Philadelphia. 
On a cursory examination of the Eev. Mr. Tuilidge's book on the Evidences of 
Christianity, I am very favorably impressed both with the plan of the work and the 
execution of the same. It will be found, I think, a useful aid in dealing with the 
shifting phases of modern Infidelity. 

Philadelphia, Oct. 81s*, 1862. HENRY A. BOARDMAN. 



From the Rev. J. P. Ditrbin, D.D., Secretary of Missionary Society of 
Methodist Episcopal Church. 

I have taken time and pains to examine largely the plan and the execution of 
"The Triumphs of the Bible, with the Testimony of Science to its Truth, by Rev. 
Henry Tullidge, A.M,' 1 and can commend it strongly. I know of no work that covers 
the same ground. That part of it on the Testimony of Science to the Authenticity 
of the Bible, is of great value. 

New York, Jan. 10th, 1863. J. P. DURBIN. 



From the Rev. Richard Newton, D.D., Sector of the Cliurch of the Epiphany, 
Philadelphia. 
I have examined with great interest portions of the MS. of the Rev. H. Tullidge'a 
work on the " Triumphs of the Bible," &c, and the perusal of a part of it has given 
rise to an earnest desire to enjoy the pleasure of reading the whole. It will prove a 
very valuable addition to our works on the evidences of the divine origin of our holy 
religion. It will furnish most efficient aid to the lover of the Bible in defending it 
against the plausible attacks of infidelity in its latest developments. The student 
will prize it for its sound learning, the general reader will be interested and attracted 
by the lively and agreeable style in which it discusses the grave and important themes 
of which it treats. It can hardly fail to prove both a useful and a popular book. 

RICHARD NEWTON. 



From the Rev. G. Emlen Hare, D.D., Professor of Biblical Learning in 

Philadelphia Divinity School. 
The subject of the book is most important. Mr. Tuilidge's treatment of his theme 
bespeaks a man much acquainted with literature, and fluent in the use of the pen. 
And I am not without hope that the work will attract and benefit many readers. 

G. EMLEN HARE. 



From the Rev. Edward Lottnsberry, Rector of St. Jude's Church, 
Philadelphia. 
I fully eoncnr with Dr. Newton in the conviction of the usefulness of Mr. Tui- 
lidge's work, and au earnest desire to see it given to the public in a permanent form. 
The field of inquiry is to some extent comparatively new ; the style sufficiently at- 
tractive to ensure a reading; and the materials he has industriously collated such at 
tannot fail to interest and instruct. It is a book adapted to the times and to the gen- 
«rai reader. 



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